Sainsbury’s efforts to focus on its own-brand products and value food offerings saw the supermarket giant post an 11% rise in annual profits.
Amidst the recession and declining consumer confidence, the group saw like-for-like sales, which excludes sales from stores opened during the year as well as fuel, grow by 4.5%, while overall sales rose by 5.7% to £20.4bn.
Chief executive Justin King put the results down to the chain’s quick response to the economic downturn, which he said had seen consumers becoming increasingly ‘savvy’, and making significant changes to its mix of products.
King said the group had extended its ‘basics’ range to included over 600 products and claimed that almost three quarters of customers were now buying into the range. In the final quarter of the year sales had been up 60% year-on year.
King also hailed the group’s good, better, best product range which he claimed had given customers more flexibility. This, he said, had seen customer transactions grow to over 18 million a week and basket sizes also increasing.
“We are performing well and have significant opportunities for growth,” he added.
Those opportunities include plans to boost its number of convenience store with 50 new outlets planned for the next 12 months. A further 100 are planned for 2010 – 2011.
