Sainsbury’s has axed three key services across its UK stores from this summer as part of places to “drive growth”.
The supermarket chain has now closed its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters in stores, as part of moves to create more space inside stores so that more fresh food options can be offered to customers. The plans to scrap the services were announced in Sainsbury’s financial report earlier this year, which said the change would help to “drive growth and availability at a reduced cost to serve”. Sainsbury’s told The Express that the most popular items from the patisserie, hot food and pizza counters will continue to be available in self-serve cabinets instead in the majority of its branches.
The retailer has also announced plans to create new “On the Go” hubs, which will offer hot food to customers from autumn this year.
The closure of these counters follows the closure of all Sainsbury’s Cafes earlier this year, which resulted in the loss of 3,000 jobs. The supermarket said the job losses—which affected about 2% of its 148,000 staff—were part of plans to “simplify the business” amid a “particularly challenging cost environment.”
Announcing the plans earlier this year, Sainsbury’s said: “In January, we announced a number of propositional changes to food services in our stores in order to drive growth and availability at a reduced cost to serve, allowing us to create further space to offer more fresh food ranges.
“By early Summer we will have closed patisserie, hot food and pizza counters and are making the most popular items available in aisles. We have now closed all remaining Sainsbury’s Cafés and we are converting our scratch bakeries to bake-off, driving improvements in quality, value and availability throughout the day.”
The retailer added: “From the Autumn, we will create new On the Go hubs with flexiserve hot food offerings, delivering an improved customer experience.”
Sainsbury’s said the changes build on its grocery performance and is confident the cuts will help to deliver its goal of reaching £1 billion of cost savings by March 2027.
Simon Roberts, Chief Executive of J Sainsbury plc, said: “We’ve transformed our business over the past four years. We have created a winning combination of value, quality and service that customers love, investing £1 billion in lowering our prices.
“More people are choosing Sainsbury’s for their main grocery shop as a result, delivering our highest market share gains in more than a decade. We are committed, above all else, to sustaining the strong competitive position we have built – consistently giving customers the great value they have come to expect from Sainsbury’s – and we expect to continue to outperform the market.
“Our customer offer is the strongest it has ever been. We’ve expanded Aldi Price Match to more products than ever before in addition to offers on more than 9,000 products with Nectar Prices. Customer satisfaction with product availability is at record levels and we’re continuing to add more new, innovative products to our ranges.”
He added: “Nectar is taking our ability to create personalised value and loyalty to the next level and our long-term contracts with farmers and suppliers demonstrate our commitment to resilience and sustainability across the UK food system.”
