Sainsbury’s has warned that the outlook for the remainder of the financial year is set to remain “challenging”, with food price deflation likely to continue.
Reporting a 0.4% decline in retail sales for the 14 weeks to January 3, 2015, the supermarket group headlined its Q3 performance as “good” in the context of what has been a “tough market”. It also reported strong Christmas sales, however, with over 29.5m customer transactions taking place during in the seven days before December 25, a period during which customers bought over 57m mince pies and over 550,000 turkeys, up 8% on 2013.
“Our performance in the third quarter showed an improving trend quarter-on-quarter,” said Sainsbury’s, whose product portfolio includes a 100% commitment to British pork, with ham being 95% British and sausages being 90% British.
“Given the uncertainty in the trading environment, however, food price deflation and the price reductions we’ve already announced, we currently expect our fourth quarter like-for-like to be similar to that of our first half.”
Pork product price cuts
The supermarket’s pricing strategy, first announced in November last year as part of a £150m “investment” in the retail price of some of the chain’s most popular products, moved forward this week with a “lowering of prices” being applied to more than 700 items, including meat, fish and poultry categories.
The reductions made for pigmeat products are as follows:
- 8 British pork sausages 454g, reduced from £1.40 to £1.10
- 12 Smoked back bacon 2 x 225g reduced from £4.00 to £3.50
- 12 Unsmoked bacon rashers 2 x 225g reduced from £4.00 to £3.50
- Rind-on unsmoked gammon steaks 450g reduced from £4.50 to £3.50
- Unsmoked gammon joint 750g reduced from £4.00 to £3.50
- 3 British pork chops 525g reduced from £4.00 to £3.30