Sainsbury’s is launching a new food service in stores from this autumn as part of plans to bring more range to customers.
The supermarket chain has announced it will roll out new On the Go hubs from the autumn which will provide customers with a selection of hot food items. The new service comes following the closure of three other food counters across Sainsbury’s stores this summer. Sainsbury’s has now scrapped its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters to create more space in stores so that more fresh food options can be offered to customers.
Sainsbury’s said the closures would help to “drive growth and availability” at a reduced cost to service and told The Express that the most popular items from its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters will continue to be available in self-serve cabinets in the majority of its branches instead.
Sainsbury’s also closed all of its cafes earlier this year to help “simplify the business” amid a “particularly challenging cost environment.”
But despite a wave of services being closed in stores this year, Sainsbury’s shoppers will soon get access to the new On the Go food hubs.
Announcing the launch of the hubs in its financial report earlier this year, the retailer 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.
“From the Autumn, we will create new On the Go hubs with flexiserve hot food offerings, delivering an improved customer experience.
“Taking all of these elements of space growth: new stores, rebalancing existing store space and propositional resets, we expect to grow total food space in Sainsbury’s by nearly three per cent in 2025/26.”
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.”