Waitrose has announced that the number of delivery slots available each week through its Waitrose & Partners Rapid service will more than treble, giving over 2.5 million households the option to use the service.

The supermarket has also confirmed that by the end of next week at least 40 per cent of these new slots will be reserved exclusively for the elderly and vulnerable. It will contact customers on the government's list of vulnerable people to inform them that they have priority access to Rapid slots.

The service, which enables shoppers to have up to 25 grocery items delivered within two hours or less or on the same day, has been trialled from eight London shops, as well as in Hove, East Sussex. From today it will be available in the areas surrounding an additional 20 shops across London. This will increase the number of available slots from 2,000 to 7,000 each week.

Waitrose also announced that it will offer an additional 10,000 online grocery collection slots, taking the total number available each week to 30,000, by introducing its online collection service in around 70 additional shops across the UK by the end of May. Around 40 shops are expected to offer this by the end of April.

As with delivery slots, at least a quarter of collection slots will be also reserved for the elderly and vulnerable.

Grocery collection has already launched in its shops in Kingston, Sevenoaks, Wimbledon, East Sheen, Westfield White City, Northwood and Bloomsbury, with more being rolled out in the coming weeks.

Ben Stimson, Waitrose.com director, said: “We are now making more online deliveries than Christmas week, every week, and have increased slots to reach 20 per cent more customers than usual.

“In addition to opening up more channels through expanding Waitrose Rapid and increasing the number of stores where online orders can be collected, we have recruited hundreds of drivers and increased the number of extra people-hours picking Waitrose.com orders by nearly 50 per cent.”

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