Business travellers passing through Heathrow Terminal 2 will soon be able to pick up a Waitrose wrap on their way to the gate, after the John Lewis Partnership confirmed a tie-up with Lagardère Travel Retail to roll out four branded outlets at the airport.
The agreement, which represents Waitrose’s first foray into the airport channel, will see the grocer’s products stocked at one landside and three airside Relay stores within Terminal 2. All four will carry Waitrose & Partners branding.
Frequent flyers can expect a curated food-to-go range tailored to the time-pressed traveller, including wraps, salads, sushi, snack pots, fresh fruit, baked goods, granola, juices and smoothies. Meal deals and selected lines from the retailer’s premium No. 1 range will also feature.
The first airside store is scheduled to open next month on the upper level of Terminal 2, trading daily from 5am until 10pm. The three remaining outlets are due to follow before the end of the year.
Waitrose may be a newcomer to airside retail, but it is far from the first supermarket to spot the opportunity. Sainsbury’s opened its debut airport store at Edinburgh in 2024, taking over a former M&S Simply Food unit and adding an in-house bakery. Marks & Spencer responded last year by unveiling its first airside stores at Heathrow Terminal 5, with a Food on the Move outlet at Gate A and a gifting concept at Gate B, complementing its existing landside footprint at Bristol, Gatwick and Glasgow.
The trend extends well beyond the UK. French heavyweight Carrefour recently opened its first Spanish airport location at Barcelona-El Prat’s Terminal 2, building on its existing presence in the arrivals hall at Dubai International Terminal 3.
The commercial rationale is straightforward. Heathrow T2 alone handles around 20 million arriving and departing passengers each year, offering supermarket operators a powerful combination of captive footfall, premium pricing and high-impact brand visibility.
The Heathrow deal forms part of a broader expansion drive at Waitrose, which currently runs around 320 stores, the majority sited in town-centre locations, alongside concessions at Shell forecourts and Welcome Break motorway service areas.
The retailer is mid-way through a £1 billion investment programme that includes store refurbishments and an explicit ambition to grow “across shops, new locations and channels”. Four further Welcome Break franchise stores are slated to open this year, taking that partnership to 33 sites nationwide. Outlets have already launched at Kate’s Cabin on the A1 and Cornwall Services on the A30, with Spalding Applegreen near Peterborough and Applegreen Whitley in Warrington next on the schedule.
Business travellers should temper expectations on cost. As with most airport retail, prices at the new Terminal 2 outlets are likely to sit above high-street equivalents, and the format is firmly geared towards pre-flight convenience rather than the weekly shop. Even so, the arrival of Waitrose adds meaningful competition for incumbents Boots, M&S Simply Food and WHSmith inside Terminal 2, and signals that the airport grocery wars are only just beginning to take off.