Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk

Freeloaders rejoice: Waitrose is bringing back free coffee for customers even if they don’t buy anything. This is a bad idea that will make shopping in what was once a nice supermarket even more miserable.

Before the pandemic, the coffee perk for members of the My Waitrose scheme could mean big queues. Originally introduced in 2013, the giveaway turned Waitrose into the second largest purveyor of coffee in the country, but the hordes it attracted irritated other shoppers. The perk was rescinded in 2020 during the pandemic and reintroduced in 2022, so long as a purchase was made. Now it’s back to freeloaders’ paradise with no purchase necessary.

“Some of our My Waitrose members like to have the free coffee before they shop or during the shop, rather than afterwards, so we are just offering a bit of flexibility in response to customer feedback,” said the retailer. 

Amid the cost-of-living crisis (felt even by some Waitrose shoppers), and terrible food price inflation, a free latte is more attractive than ever, even if you have to bring your own “reusable” cup, as loyalty card holders are reminded very unalluringly to do. The reintroduction of free coffee is a bid to lure customers back from Marks & Spencer after a bombshell bit of research from Kantar found that, for the first time outside Christmas, Waitrose had been overtaken by M&S. It’s no surprise: many have turned to Waitrose’s rival for better produce, nicer dainties and a generally more pleasant shopping experience.

The reintroduction of free coffee in Waitrose means more people through the door, and therein lies the problem for shoppers like me. Making Waitrose more crowded will make it harder to actually be able to move around in the shop.

Let’s see if the hot drinks perk, which used to infuriate independent coffee shops, will be the boon it needs to be. Waitrose could soon find itself paying a longer-term and existential price if it becomes a latte depot instead, not as well as, a place for grocery shopping. 

As it is, there are increasing threats to Waitrose’s seriousness, at least in the grandly refurbished store near me. It’s a big outlet but it used to be cosy if a bit shabby, with everything sensitively arranged in ways that made sense. Since it reopened, it’s been an unending, tiring pain in the posterior, with food staples (fruit and veg, bread, cheese) at the farthest possible distance from the main entrance, and the shelving logic feeling almost random in places. And why, oh why, are boxes of salad still in the “Hot Food” case? 

The shopper who used to walk in and quickly see real food – veg, fruit, cheese and bread – now has to battle past an expanded sushi bar, a large wall of drinks, pre-prepared, always messily arrayed ready meals, from sandwiches to sad-looking tubs of meat and sauce, and a kiosk of over-stuffed, over-priced doughnuts. I am not the only one still staggering around with puzzlement and fatigue, wondering after all these months where the courgettes and the cottage cheese could possibly be, but I do seem to be one of the only people who doesn’t have a Waitrose loyalty card, and thus one of the few for whom the return of the free hot drink offer (if you bring your own cup) doesn’t make any difference.

Instead, I’ll continue to wander around the store lost, but now there will be more crowds to fight through. Whether or not Waitrose becomes, in essence, over the long term, a doughnut and (free) coffee shop, some among the latte-grabbing crowds do spill into the rest of the shop. But as regulars are about to remember, these hordes will have a deleterious effect on the efficiency with which one can pursue one’s aims, whether those are grabbing items for dinner in an hour or thoughtful browsing of the shop’s still intriguing array of items. Waitrose has deployed caffeine to lure shoppers back in the short term, but the bottlenecks that come with that strategy may soon send them away again.