Waitrose

Waitrose is a British supermarket chain owned by the John Lewis Partnership. It originally traded mainly in London and the South East of England, though has expanded further north in recent years.

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Waitrose was formed in 1904 by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. They opened their first shop at 263 Acton Hill, West London. The company was taken over by The John Lewis Partnership in 1937 and it opened its first supermarket in 1955 in Streatham. Waitrose is an upmarket supermarket, similar to Marks and Spencer's food halls. Stores vary in size, from 7,000 to 56,000 square feet (650 to 5,200 m²).

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Waitrose is in partnership with Ocado, an internet based grocery retailer based in Hatfield, that sells Waitrose products.

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In 2004 Waitrose purchased 14 former Safeway stores from Morrisons in a project known as Toronto. Morrisons was obliged to sell more than fifty of Safeway's stores to meet competition regulations when it acquired Safeway, and the first batch of stores sold, and the largest group by number went to Waitrose. It was speculated that Morrisons preferred to sell to Waitrose rather than to its larger rivals. In August 2005 Waitrose purchased a further 5 former Safeway stores from Morrisons.

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Waitrose is known for offering services such as the WaitroseEntertaining (formerly 'By Invitation') range of products, which are made to order foods for special occasions. Waitrose also offers a range of other services including home delivery, a free glass loan and fish kettle service, a wines service, and a broadband internet service in which a proportion of the price goes to charity.

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Waitrose: Waitrose is a British supermarket chain owned by the John Lewis Partnership. It originally traded mainly in London and the South East of England, though has expanded further north in recent years....

John Lewis Partnership: The John Lewis Partnership is a major United Kingdom retailer, operating department stores and, through its Waitrose subsidiary, upmarket supermarkets. Unusually, it is a partnership, with the company held in trust on behalf of its employees (called partners) who receive an annual profit distributio...

England: :For an explanation of often confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology)....