Fat £1.9m pay day as Chubby Grocer retires from Waitrose

THE self-styled ‘chubby grocer’ has walked away from Waitrose with a £1.9m pay package.

Mark Price, who spent 33 years at the John Lewis Partnership, which owns the supermarket chain, has now joined the Government as a trade minister.

Lord Price ( pictured) was handed a £1.2m pay- off and another £642,541, which is instead of a six-month paid holiday that he would have been entitled to as a perk of having worked at the partnership for more than 25 years. Price will also get a bonus for the three months he worked at the company this year.

A JLP spokesman said: ‘ The timing of Mark’s departure was agreed between Mark and [chairman] Charlie Mayfield in the best interests of the partnership. That agreement had private contractual implications, hence the payment.’

Mayfield received £1.5m for the year. His total pay package fell by 0.2pc but his basic salary was increased by 11pc to offset a change in his pension benefit.

However, his pay is 73 times the average basic pay of staff, who are all partners at the firm. The level may surprise some due to the business being regarded as a fair and democratic set-up compared to many corporate giants. But the partnership’s founders drew up a rule in its company constitution that the ratio of the highest to lowest-paid employee should never exceed 75. The average FTSE 100 chief executive earns about 180 times more than a full-time worker. In the US, it is more than 200 times. The annual report explains that Mayfield’s total award, excluding bonus, was 59 times the average reward of a nonmanagement partner with at least three years’ service. JLP’s 91,500 employees were last month awarded a payout worth 10pc of their salary, which, although totalling £145m, was down from 11pc a year earlier and the lowest since 2003. Its profit for 2015 fell by 9.3pc to £306m. JLP has hired British Airways veteran Keith Williams to take over Price’s role as deputy chairman. Price is succeeded at Waitrose by retail director Rob Collins.