The grocer, which launched the range in six shops in April, will introduce it at stores in Leamington, Springfield in Chelmsford and Hankridge Farm in Somerset next month. This will be followed by Milton Keynes, Lordshill in Southampton and Hayes in Middlesex in October and November.
Initially, Sainsbury’s expected to roll out the brand to just 11 stores by the end of next year. Head of general merchandise Claire Sollis said: “Developing general merchandise is key to our non-food business and extending Tu Home to 12 stores highlights that our customers want the added choice of stylish but great-value homewares.”
The roll-out is another sign of Sainsbury’s ambitions to increase non-food sales by more than£1 billion by March 2010 and develop an offer to rival competitors Tesco and Asda.
The Tu Home range, which includes kitchenware, bathroom fittings, lighting and soft furnishings, launched in stores at Sydenham in Southeast London, Oldbury in the West Midlands, Calcot in Reading, London Colney, Warren Heath in Ipswich and Brentwood in Essex initially.
The range sits alongside Sainsbury’s other home brands, Different by Design and its Premium and Basics ranges. Tu is already an established clothing brand for Sainsbury’s.
Blue Oar analyst Greg Lawless praised the roll-out. “It looks and feels like Marks & Spencer, Next and John Lewis and this has to be a step in the right direction,” he said.
However, Lawless said that there was a limit to the extent of the Tu Home roll-out, because Sainsbury’s only has 22 stores that have a hypermarket footprint. “It’s the most incredible and joined-up format thinking that I have seen in 15 years of covering the sector, but the portfolio configuration is wrong,” he said.
Sainsbury’s is still searching for a replacement for non-food boss Richard Jones, who left to join rival Tesco. Jones oversaw the development of the Tu clothing brand, which generates about£300 million in annual sales. Sollis is heading the division on an interim basis.
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