A group of certified B Corporations have collaborated with Waitrose to create an aisle consisting solely of B Corp-certified products on its online store.
The trial initially offers 50 products from 20 brands – including Pukka Herbs, Ella’s Kitchen, Brew Tea Co, Rebel Kitchen, Ecover, Café Direct and Divine Chocolate – but the multiple expects this number to grow. The product mix spans food and drink, household items, personal care and pet foods.
Nick Childs, senior national account manager for Pukka Herbs and part of the team that worked with Waitrose to create the new page, comments: “Waitrose already has brand hubs, which are separate pages within the website that allow brands to communicate their information and ethics. We thought: ‘Why don’t we have a B Corp hub?’ We were lucky enough to work with Dachinii Lee-Hewitt at Waitrose, who understood and engaged quickly with the B Corp community.”
The trial on our website is for us to see how customers react to B Corp-certified brands grouped together for an ethical shop
“The B Corp movement at Waitrose & Partners starts with online,” adds Lee-Hewitt, online account manager of e-commerce at Waitrose. “The trial on our website is for us to see how customers react to B Corp-certified brands grouped together for an ethical shop. Our customers are becoming increasingly interested in the environmental and ethical credentials of what they buy, and this trial will help us gauge the impact of sustainability on a customer’s shopping journey.”
Early response has been positive, Childs says, with more than 3,500 visitors in the first few weeks: “It’s a great start, and we’re encouraged by the fact that Waitrose is so engaged.”
The B Corp store is in its early stages, with plans to enhance the look and feel, include background stories about each brand and add a banner on the homepage to direct more visitors to the page. Longer-term plans include taking the B Corp store to the supermarket’s bricks-and-mortar locations.
