First Quarter Corporate Responsibility & Society Update

First Quarter Corporate Responsibility & Society Update

08 June 2016

£45.8 million raised in 2015/2016 for charities and good causes

  • We’re proud to confirm that during 2015/16 we donated a total of £45.8 million to charities and other good causes. This included corporate donations to national charities such as Comic Relief/Sport Relief, for whom we’ve raised over £100 million for since 1999, and The Royal British Legion, but also funds raised by stores for their local charity partners, as well as investment in community programmes such as Active Kids.
  • Our work to reformulate own brand products to help improve the nutrition profile of our baskets continues. In April 2016, we reformulated our core in-store bakery glazed ring doughnuts and our core bakery cookie recipes which will remove 1.5 billion calories a year from our customers’ baskets, assuming the same volume are sold year-on-year.
  • Our commitment to source 100% British lamb this season by 1 July is firmly on track, despite the wet and cold spring. Our recognised support of British farmers is proven in store where lamb from our 400+ meat counters is 100% British all year around, as well as our chilled Taste the Difference and organic ranges.
  • We now have 751 stores with a front-of-store food donation partnerships for customer donations, 666 stores with a back-of-store partnership for surplus food and 528 stores supporting both initiatives. This brings our total number of stores with a food donation partnership to 1417, an increase in partnerships of over 180% since October 2015.
  • Our female mentoring programme has received more than 1,700 mentee requests from across the business since launch. Initial feedback has been positive from both mentees and mentors and we’ll continue to drive engagement around this offer.

Mike Coupe, Chief Executive, said:

“We are delighted with our latest annual community investment donation, which for our last financial year totalled an impressive £45.8 million. This captures the fantastic efforts of our colleagues, customers and charity partners, who worked together to have a positive impact both nationally and locally. Good causes such as The Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal and Sport Relief, as well as schools and over a thousand charity partners have all benefitted from a range of programmes such as Active Kids, Local Heroes volunteering and Local Charity of the Year.

As part of our commitment to our Making a Positive Difference to our Communities value, supporting local charities around our stores is really important to us. Our Local Charity of the Year scheme has raised over £11 million since it began in 2009. In our eighth year, we are now searching for our new Local Charity Partners, which our stores will support throughout the year with a combination of awareness-raising and fundraising opportunities in store, as well as volunteering and donations. Between 13 and 26 June we will be asking customers to vote for their chosen charity using our new voting units in stores and online at www.sainsburyslocalcharity.co.uk. Once all the votes are in and the winning charities announced, we will set about raising funds and making a difference to these good causes in the coming year.

Still close to home, but with imminent travel ahead, we wish all the athletes representing Great Britain in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games the very best of luck. To support the British Paralympics Association, profits from a range of in store merchandise will be given to the BPA and you may also see some of the athletes in your local store over the coming weeks.”

1.  Living healthier lives

  • Reformulation: Our work to reformulate own brand products to help improve the nutrition profile of our baskets continues. In April 2016, we reformulated our core in-store bakery glazed ring doughnuts and our core bakery cookie recipes which will remove 1.5 billion calories a year from our customers’ baskets, assuming the same volume are sold year-on-year. This includes 204 tonnes of fat, 70 tonnes of which are saturated, as well as 75 tonnes of sugar and 9.5 tonnes of salt. This was achieved by creating a new recipe and by the development of a new production method.
  • Free From Range Review: We have carried out a full review of our Free From range, which will be expanded and improved from May 2016. Following feedback from our customers, the range will now carry products that will be clearly colour coded to highlight from which allergen or allergens they are free from.

    Moving away from the principle that all our Free From products will be gluten, wheat and dairy free to an approach where products are free from at least one of these allergens means we will be able to offer more choice and better quality products to our Free From customers, with some products free from all three allergens still included in the range.

    Our first wave of new products, landing in store from 26 May, will include ‘Deliciously Free From’ ambient products including cookies, cakes and breads. In June, our first dairy free ice cream will launch, ahead of the summer months. During May we also sponsored two workshops run by the King’s College Allergy Academy, Practical Allergy for Nurses and Update in Paediatric Allergy 2016, which were attended by healthcare professionals including specialist allergy nurses, paediatricians, GPs, dieticians and dermatologists.
  • Cafés: From 11 May, we moved from whole milk to semi-skimmed milk in all of our in-store cafés, across 41 of our hot and cold beverages, including popular lines like hot chocolate, milkshakes, cappuccinos and lattes. This will remove 0.5 billion calories and 58.5 tonnes of fat from our customers consumption of café products. In addition we have also moved to a new way of cooking our café hash browns, which are now baked instead of fried, removing 1.6 tonnes of fat and saving 14.7 million calories.  

2.  Sourcing with integrity

  • British lamb: We have committed to source 100% British lamb this season by 1 July. Despite the wet and cold spring which can significantly reduce the growth of lambs, we are working with our farmers to increase the availability of quality new season lamb through May and June so that it is all British. The lamb season can vary from year to year however by having a strong relationship with our sheep farmers we can work with them to make the most of the British lamb season to the quality that our customers expect. Lamb from our 400+meat counters is 100% British all year around, as well as our chilled Taste the Difference and organic ranges.
  • Palm oil: Now over 98% of the palm oil used in our own brand products is certified sustainable. We have over 1,500 own brand products using sustainable palm oil from biscuits to steak and kidney pies. The latest products to use sustainable palm oil sources include pet food.
  • Research & Development: Our third R&D conference brought together nearly 300 suppliers, food & farming scientists, partners and technologists from across the UK. This year’s theme was ‘Collaboration and Connection’ to highlight the work we are doing and the opportunities that come from scientific partnerships, collaboration and shared learning.

3. Respect for our environment

  • World first: In April we announced that we had started a trial using a multi-temperature trailer using CO2 fridge technology. As opposed to other refrigerant gases, CO2 has a global warming potential (GWP) of just one – making it less impactful to the environment. Later this year we will add a further two trailers, as part delivering on our commitment to reduce our operational carbon emissions.
  • Discovery Community networks: Following the launch of our Waste less, Save more initiative in Swadlincote, we continue to test ideas for reducing household food waste. Current trials include smart fridges with technology to help families keep tabs on what they have in the fridge through integrated cameras, Waste less, Save more welcome packs for new council tenants and intelligent bins that provide an accurate log of food waste so that residents know where their ‘problem’ areas are and a Community Fridge. In April 2016 we held an event for our Discovery Community network, which brought together over 100 people from 37 communities across the UK to discuss the issues around food waste and hear from some of the leading lights in the field.  
  • Food Donation increases: We now have 751 stores with a front-of-store food donation partnership for customer donations, 666 stores with a back-of-store partnership for surplus food and 528 stores supporting both initiatives. This brings our total number of stores with a food donation partnership to 1417, an increase in partnerships of over 180% since October 2015. 

4. Making a positive difference to our community

  • Charitable donations: We’re proud to confirm that during 2015/16 we donated a total of £45.8 million to charities and other good causes. This included corporate donations to national charities such as Comic Relief/Sport Relief and The Royal British Legion, but also funds raised by stores for their Local Charity partners, as well as investment in community programmes such as Active Kids.
  • Sport Relief: Running from 15 February – 20 March, Sainsbury’s was once again the headline sponsor of the Sport Relief Games. We were also the exclusive grocery retailer to offer an extensive range of official Sport Relief merchandise including t-shirts, mugs, yoyos and a designer bag by Bella Freud, all with 100% of profits donated to Sport Relief. We declared a total donation of £7,060,681 on the day, our highest Sport Relief donation ever, bringing our partnership total to over £100 million since 1999.
  • The Paralympic Games: We will be supporting the British Paralympics Association’s (BPA) “Supercharge Paralympics GB” campaign in store from the 24 August – 20 September. We will be selling a range of merchandise with all profits being donated to the BPA, and will be working with P&G to offer pence per pack donations across many of their major brands. Colleague engagement began on 27 April with a competition for two colleagues to win a trip to Rio for the opening ceremony and we will continue to build awareness about our support for the BPA by sharing athletes stories across all our communications channels, organising athlete visits to stores, and giving colleagues the chance to contribute towards a ‘good luck’ message.
  • Community Alcohol Partnerships: We were one of the leading retailers to support the launch of the 100th Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP) on 30 March in Biggleswade, Central Bedfordshire. Set up to tackle issues associated with underage drinking, street drinking and associated harm, the CAP will bring local stakeholders, including the Police, local Councils, schools, trading standards, youth services and retailers together to address these issues. Education and constructive engagement as well as enforcement is used to make a difference. Sainsbury’s has been supportive of this scheme since it was first piloted in St Neots, Cambridgeshire in 2007 and we are now actively involved in 23 CAPs across the UK.

5. A great place to work

  • Diversity: We’re delighted at the uptake for our female mentoring programme, with over 1,700 mentee requests from across the business. Initial feedback has been positive from both mentees and mentors and we’ll continue to drive engagement around this offer. In March we launched our new Diversity and Inclusion training for both colleagues and managers. Our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) network, Proud@Sainsbury’s, continues to host quarterly networking events. Following our joint sponsorship of the Business in the Community: Race at Work survey in which 4,000 of our own colleagues took part, we have created a Race, Religion and Belief Reference group to address some of the challenges our colleagues face.
  • Colleague Engagement: In April, we communicated our 2015/16 Talkback colleague survey results. Across the year, our overall colleague engagement score is a strong 68% for Retail, up one point year-on-year. For our Store Support Centres, the engagement score is 70% which represents a two point decrease year-on-year but a one point increase from our mini Talkback survey in July, suggesting engagement is on the rise following our SSC restructure in 2015. Our colleague advocacy is high with 79% of our Retail colleagues and 78% at SSCs saying that they would tell their friends and family that we are a great place to work. The leadership of our Store Managers is also rated highly by colleagues with 78% saying that their store manager makes them want to do a great job.
  • Leadership: The Inspiring Leadership Programme continues to progress well. 1200 colleagues across the business are currently enrolled and 170 colleagues have completed the programme. Colleagues tell us that they are seeing the benefits, for example, there’s been a 25% increase in the time spent exercising their strengths.
  • Fish and Bakery Apprenticeships: We currently have 192 colleagues enrolled on our Fish and Bakery Apprenticeship Programmes. In April, the first 13 colleagues completed their programmes, gaining a City & Guilds Level 2 Diploma, and Level 1 in Maths and English Functional skills, along with their full Apprenticeship framework certificate. In April, we hosted the Prime Minister’s apprenticeship adviser, Nadhim Zahawi, at our Food College at London Colney.
  • Café Hospitality Apprenticeships: Following on from our “Café to be proud of” project, we are introducing a Café Hospitality Apprenticeship Programme. The programme will build hospitality skills and help to drive great customer service. We are also offering a Barista qualification as part of this programme where it is right for the business.