Sainsbury’s says it’s winning back shoppers from discounters ‘for first time’

Roberts said that the work Sainsbury’s has done on price under his leadership and its focus on food has meant that the grocer is now gaining market share “from other supermarkets” and for the first time “taking back share from the limited choice discounter supermarkets too.”

In the 12 weeks to September 4, 2022, Sainsbury’s accounted for 14.6% market share, according to Kantar, with discounter Aldi overtaking Morrisons’ former “big four” market position.

“We’re really encouraged with our grocery performance through the second quarter. It reflects the fact that we’re growing volume,” he said. “As you can see from all of that, we took share from everybody, and we are really moving forward with our grocery volume.”

Roberts also said that the supermarket’s food price inflation numbers were running at half the level being reported by the Office for National Statistics (12.2% to September 2023), with price cuts across many areas.

Alongside the retailer’s investment in cutting prices, Roberts said that more Sainsbury’s customers were using Nectar prices to keep the costs of their shop down.

He also noted that the historic levels of inflation seen over much of the last year were finally starting to come down.

“We know people are still finding things tough and we’re working harder than ever to reduce our costs, putting the money back into our customers’ pockets through lower prices on the products they buy most often.

“I’m pleased to say food inflation is coming down and we are passing savings on to our customers,” he said.

Looking ahead to Christmas, Roberts said the supermarket has had “strong trading momentum in recent weeks and we are confident heading into the peak trading period”.

“Customers are shopping with an amount of budget in their mind that they want to spend and our job is to make sure that we give customers across both our food and general merchandise offer the very best value that we can.”