Waitrose

Key Findings

• Economic: Waitrose has documented Israel-proper fresh-produce sourcing and historical settlement-linked sourcing, including West Bank herbs and Hadiklaim-linked Medjoul dates; it says it has since stopped sourcing the latter from Israel.^{1, 2, 3}
• Digital: Waitrose ran a very small-scale AI smart-trolley trial at one Bracknell store using Shopic, an Israeli-domiciled technology company.^{4, 5}
• Political: In 2015, Waitrose distributed an Israeli Government Tourist Office-funded Taste of Israel supplement; no published ASA ruling on the specific Waitrose brochure complaint was identified.⁶
• Not found: No public evidence identified of Waitrose or JLP defence contracts, military logistics, weapons-related products, defence/intelligence technology relationships, or operations in Israel or occupied territory.^{7, 8}

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Waitrose operates around 329 shops in Great Britain and the Channel Islands, with no physical retail presence in Israel.⁹
• Waitrose reported £8.0 billion sales and £227 million adjusted operating profit for the 52 weeks ending 25 January 2025.¹²

Executive Summary

Waitrose & Partners is the supermarket division of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership (JLP). The documented Israel/Palestine nexus is principally commercial sourcing: Waitrose has acknowledged sourcing produce from Israel-proper, including mangoes, potatoes, figs, avocados, peppers, grapefruit and pomegranates. Waitrose states that goods labelled “from Israel” originate within internationally recognised pre-1967 borders; independent verification across all third-party supplier lines is not publicly available.^{1, 13}

The record also contains historical settlement-linked sourcing. Waitrose said it had sourced herbs from six Israeli-managed West Bank farms and, by 2014, had stopped sourcing own-brand herbs from Israeli West Bank settlements, describing the decision as commercial. Researchers documented Duchy Medjoul dates supplied via Hadiklaim, whose cooperative includes Jordan Valley settlement growers; Waitrose later told Ethical Consumer that it no longer sources Medjoul dates from Israel and now sources them from the United States and Morocco. The date of that change was not publicly specified.^{2, 3} A 2010 finding concerned Achva halva labelled as originating from the Barkan industrial settlement; the available record identifies a dispute over the relationship with a settlement producer, not concealment of origin.¹⁴

Other documented vectors are limited. In digital technology, Waitrose conducted a small single-store trial of Shopic smart trolleys, supplied by an Israeli-domiciled company. In political/state-adjacent activity, Waitrose distributed a 2015 Israeli Government Tourist Office-funded tourism supplement. The audit found no post-2015 comparable state-promotional episode and no public corporate statement by Waitrose or JLP on Gaza since October 2023.^{4, 6, 15}

No public evidence identified supports defence contracting, weapons, military logistics, tactical-product supply, defence-prime integration, defence/intelligence technology work, Israeli cloud infrastructure, or a Waitrose operational presence in Israel or occupied territory. Allegations or links involving the John Lewis department-store sibling - such as historical SodaStream sales - are not attributed as Waitrose activity and were discontinued in 2014.^{7, 8, 16}

On the fixed, human-vetted V6.4 assessment, Waitrose receives BRS 149, Tier E (Minimal). The score reflects a limited but evidenced economic nexus, a narrowly scoped Israeli technology pilot, and a historical state-promotional incident, while discounting exited operations and excluding unsupported, wrong-entity, or non-specific claims.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Waitrose & Partners is a UK supermarket trading division wholly owned by JLP, which also owns the John Lewis department-store sibling. JLP is held in trust for approximately 70,000 employee-Partners and has no external equity shareholders. The company is managed as a single integrated business; this structure requires parent- and sibling-level facts to be distinguished from conduct directly attributable to Waitrose.^{9, 11}

Waitrose has no stores, logistics facilities, offices, franchise, wholesale or licensing agreement with an Israeli retailer in Israel or occupied territory. Its identified overseas licensing arrangement is with Spinneys in Dubai, UAE. The relevant nexus is therefore supply-chain purchasing rather than local operations.⁹

Historically documented supply-chain links include Israeli fresh produce, West Bank herb farms, Hadiklaim-linked dates and a Barkan-origin halva product. A separate researcher-documented connection through the Edom UK joint venture concerns produce reportedly packed at Beit Ha’arava settlement’s packing house; Waitrose publicly denied wrongdoing concerning sourcing claims. The audits do not establish the present status of that supply relationship.^{1, 20, 13}

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of a Waitrose or JLP contract, tender, framework agreement or MOU with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israel Prison Service or Border Police. No public evidence identified of tactical or mil-spec products, heavy equipment deployed in occupied territory, supply-chain links to Elbit, Rafael or Israel Aerospace Industries, base services, weapons systems, export licences, or sanctions action involving Waitrose.^{7, 8}

The identified occupied-territory nexus concerns agricultural sourcing, rather than construction, engineering, defence procurement or military support.^{1, 20}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Waitrose is a civilian food and general-merchandise retailer. The audit found no defence-sector relationship and no military equipment or service vector. Its UK logistics arrangements were not shown to have an Israel or defence dimension. The absence findings do not prove that no relationship could ever exist; they record that none was identified in the specified public-source checks.⁷

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Waitrose & Partners / JLP - no public evidence identified of Israeli defence or security contracting.⁷
• IDF, Israeli Ministry of Defence, Israel Prison Service and Border Police - no identified Waitrose contract or service relationship.⁷
• Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries - no identified supply or component relationship.⁸

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Waitrose conducted a “very small scale” trial at one Bracknell store of Shopic AI smart trolleys. Shopic is Israeli-registered and Israeli-domiciled, with headquarters and R&D in Tel Aviv; the system uses computer vision for product recognition and frictionless payment.^{4, 5}

The wider technology stack identified in the audit uses AWS, Elastic, Flooid/Glory, ORTEC, Trust Retail, Netcore Unbxd, Oracle, Wipro, Blue Prism, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Dataiku, Tableau and other non-Israeli-domiciled providers. No Israeli cloud, data-centre, sovereign-cloud, defence-AI or other Israeli technology vendor relationship was identified beyond Shopic.¹⁷

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The Shopic arrangement was a single-store pilot, rather than evidence of enterprise-wide deployment. Shopic’s trial concerns retail checkout and customer-behaviour data, not military, intelligence or autonomous-weapons technology. Waitrose’s privacy notice states that its CCTV does not use facial recognition or collect biometrics. Project Pegasus was a retail-funded UK police initiative; Waitrose did not operate the facial-matching technology.^{21, 22}

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Shopic - Israeli-domiciled smart-trolley vendor; one Bracknell pilot.^{4, 5}
• Project Pegasus - UK police retail-crime arrangement; indirect potential use of retailer CCTV, not an Israeli vendor relationship.²²
• AWS, Google Cloud, Wipro, Netcore Unbxd and Flooid - identified technology providers not domiciled in Israel.¹⁷

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

Waitrose has acknowledged sourcing a range of produce from Israel-proper. Its stated policy is that products labelled “from Israel” are sourced from internationally recognised pre-1967 borders, while West Bank produce is labelled as such. Independent verification of every third-party line is not publicly available.^{1, 13}

The strongest historical settlement-linked evidence concerns six Israeli-managed West Bank herb farms, Duchy Medjoul dates via Hadiklaim, and Achva halva labelled Barkan, West Bank. Waitrose says it stopped the herb sourcing in 2014 and later said it no longer sources Medjoul dates from Israel. The timing of the date de-sourcing is unresolved.^{2, 3, 14}

ICJP’s October 2024 notice named Waitrose among eight UK supermarkets and sought disclosure about settlement-goods sourcing and due diligence. The notice listed several suppliers as connected with goods reaching UK supermarkets generally, but does not attribute Miriam or Shoham specifically to Waitrose; any Waitrose-specific relationship with those names is unverified. No public Waitrose response setting out due-diligence procedures was identified.¹⁸

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Waitrose denies wrongdoing in connection with Israeli-product sourcing claims and says Israeli-labelled produce comes from pre-1967 Israel. The 2010 Achva product was labelled with Barkan origin, so the record does not establish a labelling violation. Waitrose’s reported cessation of West Bank herb sourcing and Israel-date sourcing must be treated as mitigating, while preserving the uncertainty over timing and any broader current supplier portfolio.^{13, 2, 3, 14}

Sabra is not a current Israeli-entity supply relationship: Strauss divested its 50% ownership in November 2024 and PepsiCo became sole owner. No Israeli investors, parent company, profit-repatriation channel, or Israeli physical operating presence was identified for Waitrose or JLP.^{19, 9}

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Hadiklaim - historical Medjoul-date channel; settlement-grower and Beit Ha’arava packing-house links documented by researchers.^{3, 20}
• Achdut-Achva / Achva - Barkan-origin halva documented in 2010.¹⁴
• ICJP - legal notice to eight supermarkets; Waitrose-specific relationships with Miriam and Shoham unverified.¹⁸
• Sabra / Strauss / PepsiCo - Strauss exited in 2024; no longer Israeli-domiciled.¹⁹

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

In February 2015, Waitrose distributed Taste of Israel, a paid advertising supplement in Waitrose Kitchen produced and funded by the Israeli Government Tourist Office. The material prompted criticism and an ASA complaint. No published ASA ruling specifically resolving the Waitrose brochure complaint was identified.⁶

The audit found no evidence that Waitrose or JLP lobbied the UK government on Israel/Palestine trade policy, financed pro-Israel lobbying bodies or campaign funds, or made public statements on Gaza since October 2023. A May 2024 spokesperson comment that boycott-day trading was “business as usual” is the only identified post-October 2023 Waitrose statement touching the issue.¹⁵

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Waitrose said the 2015 pamphlet was not written or produced by the company and that it was no longer in stores. The audit identifies no comparable Israeli-government promotional partnership after 2015. JLP’s mission and constitution concern commercial success, employee welfare and Partner governance, not a political or state-engagement mandate.^{6, 11}

John Lewis sibling-brand decisions regarding SodaStream and Ahava must not be assigned to Waitrose. John Lewis stopped selling SodaStream in 2014; that removal is an exculpatory, divested sibling-level fact, not evidence of ongoing Waitrose political conduct.¹⁶

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Israeli Government Tourist Office - producer and funder of the 2015 supplement.⁶
• Waitrose - distributor of the supplement; said it did not produce it.⁶
• ICJP - requested UK legislation on settlement-import sales; no Waitrose/JLP representation was identified.¹⁸
• John Lewis department stores - sibling-brand, not Waitrose; discontinued SodaStream in 2014.¹⁶

Complicity Index Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 1.75 Avg_OTHERS: 0.18
• BRS Score: 149 Tier: E (Minimal)

Economic determines V_MAX because the evidence record documents an economic sourcing nexus, including historical settlement-linked sourcing, although significant elements are exited, historical or unresolved. The lower digital result reflects a narrowly scoped Shopic pilot; Military is zero because no public evidence of a military nexus was identified, and Political’s examiner-adjudicated result remains zero despite the historical supplement.

The Complicity Index method is scale-free, evidence-only and human-vetted: Impact is assessed by activity type, M by magnitude and P by directness/proximity. The supplied V6.4 scores are fixed and have not been recalculated in this dossier.

Methodology Note

• This dossier uses only the four supplied domain audits and cites only their underlying documented sources.
• Impact (I) reflects activity type; magnitude (M) reflects scale; proximity (P) reflects directness to the relevant nexus.
• Claims designated unverified, unresolved, historical, parent-level or sibling-level remain qualified as such.
• Divested, discontinued or exited operations mitigate the record and are not presented as current conduct.
• Entity attribution is direct: no transitive guilt is inferred from a vendor, parent, sibling or supplier relationship without audit support.
• Settlement operation can be relevant to both Economic and Political, but is not double-counted as military evidence; “No public evidence identified” is retained where audit checks found none.

End Notes