Background
Grocery retailer Waitrose & Partners take great pride in the way they work with local and regional suppliers and the Waitrose Local and Regional Team take their responsibilities very seriously. With the introduction of new Food Information Regulations in 2014, Waitrose wanted to support local and regional suppliers through the required changes to ensure locally produced and sourced products remained available for customers.
The regulatory consequences were fines of £5,000 per non-compliant product on sale per day. Across the local and regional portfolio of 1,500 products, this equated to £7.5m per day.
Solution
Waitrose introduced a supplier self-help portal built on the Supply Pilot Platform and supported by the Supply Pilot Campaign Team. The supplier engagement campaign - delivered helped suppliers understand the regulations, which products were affected, and gave clear guidance on the actions needed to ensure compliance with the FIR regulations.
Importantly, this included category-specific information. For example, some local breweries had not realised that FIR also related to beverages and would have been non-compliant and risked their products being removed from sale if it were not for the Waitrose FIR initiative.
Impact
Especially important for small Local and Regional suppliers was the easy-to-digest information, available 24/7, meaning suppliers did not need to contact Waitrose with queries.
The creation of the supplier self-help portal ensured consistent support and advice across all relevant suppliers, improving accuracy, efficiency and legal compliance. Waitrose found that successful supplier engagement not only helped them and their suppliers to meet their obligations but, with over 5,000 answers viewed on the Supply Pilot Platform, also provided an estimated £100,000 cost saving by diverting supplier queries from Waitrose partners.
Waitrose was incredibly supportive. The information contained on The Supply Pilot Platform was amazing and provided all the necessary answers. The approach Waitrose took was therefore extremely refreshing and provided a real boost to our business.
Supplier
Waitrose & Partners