Forget salads: Waitrose shoppers are buying cottage pie in a heatwave

Britain’s prolonged heatwaves are failing to dampen consumers’ appetite for traditional comfort food, with Waitrose reporting an unexpected surge in demand for hearty meals more commonly associated with winter.

The supermarket said sales of cottage pies more than doubled over the past month, rising 110 per cent, while purchases of chicken and ham gratin and South African red wine each climbed 68 per cent.

Online behaviour pointed to the same shift. Searches on Waitrose’s website for recipes including spaghetti bolognese, toad in the hole and macaroni cheese rose sharply, suggesting shoppers are increasingly turning to familiar, warming dishes despite unusually high summer temperatures.

The trend runs counter to the seasonal expectation that hot weather boosts demand for salads, barbecue food and lighter meals. Waitrose said customers appeared to be moving away from classic summer staples, describing the phenomenon as “feta fatigue”.

Stephen Parkins-Knight, the retailer’s senior innovation chef, said prolonged periods of extreme heat may be changing eating habits rather than reinforcing them.

“After spending all day drained by the heat, people crave rich, grounding staples to recharge, pivoting back toward comfort and familiarity,” he said.

The shift highlights how consumer behaviour does not always follow conventional seasonal patterns. While retailers continue to benefit from strong sales of cooling drinks and summer products, demand for comfort food suggests many households are seeking familiarity after enduring weeks of exceptionally warm weather.

For supermarkets, the unexpected trend underlines the challenge of managing inventories during increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, as climate volatility reshapes purchasing habits in ways that traditional seasonal forecasting may struggle to anticipate.