Waitrose is to ditch its DVDs and CDs in favour of increasing its selection of home cooking products.

Waitrose’s home entertainment sales have struggled in the six years since it began selling them because “it can’t compete on price” with supermarkets such as Tesco, a source close to the retailer claimed.

Home entertainment floor space would be replaced with more home cooking lines, a Waitrose spokeswoman confirmed.

“Cooking is a priority for our customers so we have chosen to increase space dedicated to our cookware assortment,” she said.

John Lewis’s Cookshop range, which includes pans, knives and baking trays, would also become more widely available in Waitrose stores within the next few weeks, she added.

“We regularly assess our sales space and, as Waitrose does not have particularly large sites, space has to earn its keep,” said one store manager.

“We have been looking at our use of space and have decided to get rid of our home entertainment section and use the room to bring in additional products that encourage customers to cook from scratch, including herbs, oils and stocks.”

Sales of the Cook’s Ingredients range were up 16% year-on-year and 21% during the past 13 weeks at his store, he said.

The strong performance of the Cook’s Ingredients range since the start of the economic downturn was a result of many customers changing their eating habits and cooking more meals from scratch in an effort to save money, he added.

The range would be extended by the end of this month, he predicted.