Waitrose has started a national roll-out programme adding its online delivery service to 24 more shops across the country.

A statement explained that these shops are strategically placed to handle increased demand for the retailer’s online shopping service in preparation for its split from Ocado.

From 1 September, as part of the move to partner with Marks & Spencer, Ocado is going to lose the right to sell any Waitrose products, so its food and drink will exclusively be available on Waitrose.com.

Currently 150 of the retailer’s shops cover deliveries across the country with 84 per cent of active UK postcodes able to order Waitrose products online. In addition to the new 24 shops, work is underway with the current online shops to further increase their order capacity.

A new fulfilment centre is also due to open in Enfield in the coming months to respond to a surge in demand in and around London.

Digital director Ben Stimson explained: “We have robust plans in place to extend our reach ahead of September - we have significant investment planned for the coming months across our infrastructure, website and service - creating more delivery slots and employing a fleet of new drivers.

“Our teams at head office are working across our website and apps to make our service better, faster and more convenient, and our chefs and product developers will be launching or redeveloping more than 5000 of our own label products this year.”

Last May, Waitrose announced that Today Development Partners would replace Ocado as part of a £1 billion plan to treble the size of its online grocery operations over the next three years. However, by September the supermarket chain had scrapped the automated customer fulfilment centre partnership and stated would "instead pursue our online ambitions utilising existing expertise across the partnership".

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