Waitrose is planning to close six stores and remove a level of management in its supermarkets, putting nearly 700 jobs at risk.

The upmarket grocer began consulting with staff at the six stores – in Hertford, Staines, Leek, Huntingdon, Cardiff Queen Street and Palmers Green in north London – on Monday ahead of planned closures later this year. The company said it hoped to replace the Palmers Green store with a new outlet in nearby Winchmore Hill.

The company is also removing the role of department manager in its 350 stores, affecting 180 jobs.

Waitrose said most of the 486 department managers would become deputy store managers and the reduction in staff would happen gradually over three years through retirement, “natural turnover” and voluntary redundancies.

Ben Stimson, Waitrose retail director, said: “We’d always try hard to avoid closing branches, but we review how our branches are doing commercially and respond where we have to. We’ll be consulting with our [staff] on these proposed closures and will give them all the support they need.



Why is Waitrose closing stores? Read more

“We’ve successfully trialled a flexible way of working that enables us to give even better service to our customers. We now plan to adopt this model in all our supermarkets.”



The job cuts and store closures come after Waitrose said in September that it no longer planned to develop seven new stores, forcing its parent group, John Lewis Partnership, to take a £25m profit writedown on the value of the land.

A year ago, just after the introduction of the new £7.20 an hour minimum wage for over-25s, the supermarket also stopped paying Sunday and overtime rates for new shop workers.

Waitrose’s parent group has warned that its annual bonus for staff, who own the company collectively, would fall significantly this year and staff numbers would drop after operating profits dived 58.3% to £113.7m in the six months to the end of July. Waitrose’s operating profit before exceptional items was down 10.5% to £121.3m as sales at established stores slid 1%.

Rob Collins, the managing director of Waitrose who took over from Mark Price last year, plans to open just eight Waitrose stores this year – most of which will be convenience stores. He wants to plough money into improving existing stores instead by putting it in cafes, wine bars and sushi counters. The company said the new stores would create 600 jobs.

Waitrose had a strong Christmas, with sales at established stores up by 2.8%, but the partnership’s chairman, Charlie Mayfield, warned of a challenging year ahead as retailers would have to absorb a big chunk of the rising cost of importing goods due to the fall in the value of the pound, just as they are coping with shoppers’ shift to buying online.