Sainsbury’s sold more units of produce during unit nine of this financial year than it ever has in its history, commercial director Paul Mills-Hicks has said.
Speaking at the recent Sainsbury's Farming Conference, Mills-Hicks said that while basket size is down, Sainsbury’s is “keeping its head above water” on volume and is seeing like-for-like transaction growth in its main estate supermarkets. “That means we are switching customers from Asda, Tesco, Co-op and Morrisons,” he said. “But we are still losing customers to Aldi and Lidl on price, and M&S and Waitrose on quality – those who are more extreme on proposition are still winning from us.”
Sainsbury’s now sells more produce at EDLP than Aldi, according to Mills-Hicks, after shelving multibuy promotions in favour of simpler pricing. “The one thing that the discounters have shown all of us is that we can’t be complacent on price. I want more quality at a lower price,” he said. “It’s much more about understanding the value chain, and getting rid of all points of waste.”
Outlining the strategy for the key Christmas shopping period, Mills-Hicks said Sainsbury’s is focusing more on multi-product promotion plinths to make the shopping experience easier, in a departure from its usual POS pricing messages.
“You don’t need POS – you can have visual merchandising, so for example we’ve got salads with sauces, proteins, spices, dressings – we can add the full range that Sainsbury’s has, that Aldi and Lidl doesn’t have. It’s a very different approach,' he said.
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