Waitrose Food & Drink Festival partners with We Are Collider for fourth year running 

The Waitrose Food & Drink Festival, taking place at London’s Tobacco Dock, is returning between 21 and 23 November. The 2025 outing marks its fourth consecutive year, with each event being delivered in partnership with experience agency, We Are Collider.

Covering both floors of Tobacco Dock, with over 10,000 attendees, 260 brands and thousands of products, this year’s iteration is the biggest yet and gives customers even more opportunities to hear top seasonal tips and recommendations from Waitrose partners and product developers. As testament to the festival’s growing reputation amongst food lovers, tickets for the 2025 festival sold-out within two-weeks, three times faster than last year.

Featuring a line-up of celebrity chefs including Jack Stein, Yotam Ottolenghi, Charlie Bigham, Sabrina Ghayour, Frederico Fiorillo and Atul Kochhar; this year’s event takes an even bigger footprint by growing into two new rooms. The new spaces will host brand-led activations such as a disco room, acoustic sessions and the Waitrose & Partners’ very own jazz band.

The newly expanded festival also places a larger focus on Waitrose-only spaces. These include the VIP lounge and the Waitrose Experience Room. The latter debuted last year and is returning to highlight a range of Waitrose subbrands including Waitrose No.1, Dutchy, Leckford and the newly acquired Dishpatch, which will run sessions with celebrity chefs Andi Oliver and Jack Stein. Customers can also pre-book masterclasses to get hands-on with experts in sessions covering everything from cocktail making to whisky tasting and wine pairing.

Waitrose’s Alice Rolfe, Events & Experiences Senior Manager, said: “The Festival’s unprecedented demand this year, selling out three times faster than in 2024, is testament to its growing reputation as a must-attend event for food lovers. Our goal has always been to deliver a spectacular, high-value experience for our customers and by expanding our footprint and line-up of celebrity talent, we’re confident this will be our best and biggest Festival yet.”

We Are Collider’s MD, Tracy Sorgiovanni, added: “It’s such a privilege to work on a project like this and watch it grow in both reputation and scale as each year goes by. It’s become a highlight of customers’ calendars and our own. This year, we started planning in January with the work really taking off in March. It’s incredibly satisfying to see nine-months of work coming together in a vast and joyous festival that meets Waitrose’s marketing objectives while giving food lovers the seasonal entertainment they love.”