In this week’s The Grocer our Director of Branding, Giles Lury, comments on the latest news story of Waitrose starting to sell its products at Shell forecourts.

Giles says that the move was logical: “Waitrose is playing catch-up with M&S. I think it will work – who really wants sandwiches made by a petrol company?”

On the back of the recent news of Waitrose agreeing a multimillion pound investment deal with Prince Charles’s Duchy Originals food company, the FT published a news analysis on Saturday, 31st November discussing the value of the royal warrant in the 21st century.

In January 2000, Marketing magazine published an analysis on “Is there any power behind a royal warrant?” written by one of our consultants. On the back of this article, we had the honour to be asked by the FT to comment in this most recent case. Please read what Alex Waters, Director at The Value Engineers, has to say.