A coffee coup for Whitbread

THE John Lewis Partnership has clinched a deal with Whitbread to put Costa coffee shops into Waitrose supermarkets. The retail group, which runs Waitrose stores mainly in the South-East, Midlands and East Anglia, is understood to be preparing a number of its sites to trial the coffee shops in response to similar moves by rivals.

At first, only a handful of stores will offer the trendy coffee, but it is understood that if successful-it could go on sale throughout the group.

With 300 outlets, Costa is the largest branded coffee shop business in the UK. As it already runs instore concessions for Abbey National, Homebase, WH Smith, Ottakars and Waterstone's, the well-heeled customers of Waitrose were considered to be an obvious next step in its expansion.

Rivals Sainsbury and Safeway have deals in operation with US coffee giant Starbucks.