Waitrose opened the doors to its newly refurbished John Barnes, Finchley Road store this morning (21 August), one of the first shops to receive a makeover, as it embarks on one of its “biggest periods of expansion”.

The upmarket grocer is plotting up to 100 new convenience shops in next five years and will improve 150 existing sites.

The new store concept unveiled at Finchley Road will be central to these plans. It’s a store that Waitrose executive director James Bailey is “exceptionally proud of”.

“I hope you can see that we’ve designed a shop that’s more beautiful, more colourful, and designed for food lovers to come and enjoy their shopping experience.

“It’s one of the first shops on a long list because we’re going to be spending £1bn renovating our store estate over the next three or four years. There’ll be new shops in there, but a lot of the money goes into some of our favourite shops to make them look as beautiful as this one does now.”

Retail director Tina Mitchell says that with each new or revamped store it will ask: “What does the customer want out of the shop? How can we make it as easy as possible to shop? And how do we elevate products?”

While the revamped store offers a lot of new features, one thing that isn’t going anywhere are its counters, which Mitchell describes as “a USP” and “what Waitrose stands for”.

“It’s where you really get first hand our quality, our values, our ethics,” she says.

In the Finchley Road store, counters include cheese, fish and meat, where it also has a special dry aged beef counter. It also has a bakery and dedicated sushi area.

“If you think about a location like this, in the heart of London, these counters trade so well,” Mitchell explains.

With a real mission to make each store right for its location and customers, one feature that is right for the Finchley Road store is a dedicated parmesan section. In fact, the store is the top performing across all its locations for the cheese, with 12% of Waitrose parmigiano counter sales coming from this store.

Prior to the reopening, Waitrose had used its store in Sudbury in Suffolk to trial new services, product offerings and concept upgrades.

Mitchell says: “We didn’t do the bakery in Sudbury and it was really obvious when we walked the store. Bakery feels really core…so we’ve worked at it again and you’ll see here it’s very different to what we’ve got in most stores.”

IGD global insight leader Bryan Roberts describes the bakery section as “incredible,” adding that it is “superbly merchandised”.

A new feature at the Finchley Road store is chilled white, rose and champagne cabinets, which Mitchell says are “super important to the customer in this environment”.

“It’s a big step on from what we had in this store before.. it really frustrated customers that we didn’t have chilled wine in here.”

It is also likely to be rolled out to all revamped stores as well as future new stores.

“I’d argue chilled wine will just become a design standard for us because what customer is not going to want to buy their wine chilled,” Mitchell adds.

Store design expert John Ryan, founder of New Stores, says that for the middle class shopper, a chilled wine section is “the right thing”. He also says that Waitrose will “be watched very closely by M&S who will want to remain ahead”.

Redline Retail consultant Andrew Busby says that in order to elevate the chilled offer further, Waitrose “could have taken a leaf out of Majestic’s book and had an area where at certain times and days of the week, perhaps you could book a tasting”.

Another area of investment in Finchley Road is food-to-go, and Mitchell says that ensuring its stores offer variety in this category will continue to be a big priority for Waitrose.

“We’ve got to continue to innovate and really reflect food trends,” she explains.

Alongside its £5 lunchtime meal deal, the Finchley Road store is now offering in-branch made baguettes, as well as some salads and wraps.

“It’s getting that balance between the customer that just wants their crisps and drink and then somebody who wants something that’s a bit more artisan as well,” Mitchell says. “If i was a betting person, I think this is going to work quite well and if it does work well, then we’ll need to roll this out quickly into all the shops.”

To provide a better food on-the-go offer, the store also offers a hot chicken and salad counter, and a new hot wok counter at the Sushi Daily station.

Waitrose is not alone in the food-to-go trend. Comparing its offer to M&S’ recently reopened store in Clapham Junction which included a wood-fired pizza oven, Busby argues that Waitrose’s hot food-to-go felt “half-hearted”.

However, Mitchell says its hot food proposition will continue to evolve and it will also bring in third parties to offer greater variety to shoppers across food-on-the-go.

Partners include Gail’s, Caffè Nero and Crosstown Doughnuts.

Another category given attention is fresh foods. While high-quality fresh produce has traditionally been an area of strength for Waitrose, it still needed some improvement. Mitchell says that space has been “rebalanced” at the store, giving more room back to fresh foods.

Ryan says: “The first thing you see is fresh and Waitrose is banging out the message that it’s great, organic, leaders in animal welfare, all the sort of stuff that its target shoppers want to hear.”

As well as improving product offer and display, Waitrose has also focused on improving in-store efficiency.

It has revamped its fixtures, allowing product to be stored underneath the displays. Mitchell says this allows partners to replenish shelves faster.

Self-checkout is also more prominent with 28 self-service terminals around the store, compared to eight manned checkouts.

Mitchell affirms: “Manned tills are still really important to us. We’re not in the camp of just going down the self-service route, because we want to be able to serve our customers in whatever way they want to be served.”

It’s a move that works for Roberts. “With ample choice in terms of checkout solutions the store is a joy to shop and should do incredibly well,” he insists.

Despite its focus on making its new shops the place for ‘food lovers’, the store incorporates a revamped click-and-collect station to make shopping between Waitrose and sister brand John Lewis easier. Mitchell says this is designed for the modern shopper.

Mitchell says: “Click and collect is such a key part for us with our sister brand John Lewis and a lot of our customers shop in both brands.”

With the likes of M&S spending millions of pounds on opening new stores and revamping its current ones, Waitrose needed to take action.

Although the grocer has invested in very ‘Waitrose’ elements – see: parmesan section, dry-aged beef counter, and chilled champagne cabinets – opinion is divided as to whether the store competes with its upmarket rival.

Busby argues that it “doesn’t move the dial that much” and felt like a “very analogue store”.

He explains: “It’s got a huge opportunity to differentiate itself from M&S Foodhalls by becoming a very artisan grocer, really bringing the farm to the table, and bringing unexpected things.

“I would like to see them moving more towards being that little bit more specialised, offering things that perhaps you wouldn’t get anywhere else. There’s a gap in the market for that kind of grocer.”

However, Ryan says that Waitrose is “going in the right direction,” and argues that “M&S will have reasons to sit up and take notice and do something about it”.

It should also grab the attention of upmarket shoppers and, when the concept is rolled out across its wider estate, will give the grocer a fighting chance of winning back some of those customers.