Waitrose targets former pubs for convenience

Your former local pub could soon become a Waitrose after the grocer unveiled aggressive plans yesterday to open 300 convenience stores in the next 10 years.

The supermarket, which currently has just seven convenience shops, said it wanted sites, including former pubs and petrol filling stations, to turn into new branches. The chain, which has 231 outlets, said it was interested in leasehold or freehold sites with between 3,000 square feet and 7,000 sq ft of selling space in city and town centres where there was a high footfall of potential customers.

Waitrose advertised details of its requirements to the property sector after achieving sales growth of 11.3 per cent for the 12 weeks to 11 July, according to Kantar Worldpanel data.

The frozen food chain Iceland saw the highest growth, with sales up 11.4 per cent, Kantar said. Tesco and Asda grew by just 3.8 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, despite aggressive World Cup promotions during the period.