Update from Mike Coupe, Chief Executive Officer, Sainsbury’s
This quarter has been extremely busy as we make further progress towards meeting our goals set out in our Sustainability Plan. Last year we published our updated Sustainability Plan which focuses on the areas where we believe we’ll make the most impact – and I believe we are making good headway with the work we’ve been doing.
We are very proud to have sponsored the GB Paralympics team at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games – and to have played a small part in their fantastic haul of 147 medals. Their incredible achievement was inconceivable even just ten years ago – so is testament to their spirit and determination to succeed. Our sponsorship has enabled us to help inspire schools and young people to try out four different Paralympic sports for themselves with the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge. Not only does this give millions of children the chance to play new sports, it is also structured with a range of peer-led activities to help develop young leadership skills. With 2.2 million children across the UK taking part in the Paralympic Challenge it demonstrates the significance of our Active Kids programme and the power of the Paralympics to inspire.
In my last update I said we would be asking customers to vote for their store’s Local Charity of the Year. This year we had an unprecedented 1.9 million votes cast, up 440% year on year, and in July more than 1,200 stores began their new year-long charitable partnerships. We wish all the stores the very best in their fundraising efforts, and look forward to hearing more about the positive impact the funds raised will have for those chosen charities.
Lastly, but certainly not least, I am incredibly proud that Sainsbury’s has been awarded a Gold accreditation by Investors in People for the third year running. Sainsbury’s is the largest employer to have ever reached the Gold accreditation and the only retailer to have achieved three consecutive gold awards since this measure of best practice was established in 1991, which is testament to all of our colleagues working up and down the UK.
As we head towards Christmas, our busiest period of trading, we will continue to work hard to listen and act on colleague feedback as well as develop and support our colleagues whilst creating a fantastic shopping experience for our customers.
I look forward to updating you again on our next set of achievements in January 2017.
- Living healthier lives
- Active Kids Paralympic Challenge: Active Kids continues to engage children up and down the country. Alongside our partnership with Paralympics GB, the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge has proved hugely popular. Over 7,000 schools have signed up to take part, enabling us to open up the world of Paralympic sport to younger generations with the Paralympic Challenge providing the opportunity for 2.2 million children to engage in Paralympic sports including sitting volleyball and boccia.
- Trip to Rio: Woodlea Junior School in Leyland, Lancashire, won an amazing trip to the Paralympics in Rio following its participation in Sainsbury’s Active Kids Paralympic Challenge. The school won the prize for logging the most activity per pupil through the challenges on the Get Set Road to Rio app which encourages schools and young people to share their levels of sporting activity.
- Salt reduction: We have removed an estimated 3,430kg of salt annually from three of our own brand canned Corn Beef products - the equivalent to 686,000 teaspoons, with the new improved formulation also delivering reductions in fat, saturated fat, sugar and calories. We undertook the work as part of our efforts to meet the Government’s 2017 average processing salt target of 1.63g of salt per 100g. We have achieved this while improving the quality and taste - customer panel results showed us that the new reduced salt product won in both flavour and overall liking when panelled against the higher salt Sainsbury’s product.
- Reformulated bacon products: We have started on the next stage of our work to reduce the salt content of our own brand bacon, launching four reformulated bacon products in store in July 2016. This was achieved by reducing the amount of salt used in the brine to make the bacon, with customers reporting no noticeable impact on taste. This work will continue in Q3 to maximise the impact of the reformulation work.
- Sourcing with integrity
- Packaging reductions: Since 2005 we have reduced our own brand packaging across all of our ranges by almost 33%. A recent example of this is within our Beers, Wines and Spirits range where we have ‘light-weighted’ our own brand sherry bottles by 10% which last year alone saved 79 tonnes of glass.
- Sustainably sourced timber: We are committed to sourcing our key raw materials sustainably. This includes increasingly sourcing timber from credibly-certified forests or verified recycled sources. As members of WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) in the UK we have also committed to transparent communication on how we procure our forest products. In September we were therefore pleased to publish our 2015 performance on forest sourcing: 93% of the wood used in our own-brand products is now from recycled or FSC or PEFC certified sources with full chain of custody.
- Cage-free eggs and Woodland Trust Partnership: In 2009 we became the first of the ‘Big Four’ retailers to sell only cage-free fresh eggs, and since 2012 we have only used cage-free eggs as an ingredient in our own brand foods. This means shoppers can be confident that they are not compromising their ethics when purchasing our products, from Basics to Taste the Difference. As we reach our seven-year anniversary, sales data tells us we’ve sold 3.1 billion woodland eggs. We donate 1p per dozen eggs which has contributed to raising over £5.4 million for the Woodland Trust to date.
- Respect for our environment
- Corporate reporting on waste: In September this year, we released our corporate food waste and food surplus numbers for 2014/15 and 2015/16 – our data shows that we are making a positive impact. Our charitable food donation partnerships have increased significantly over the last year and now stand at over 1,000, which means more food is getting to those who need it most. Whilst the surplus food we convert to animal feed has seen a slight increase of 0.8%, the food waste that is converted to energy has gone down by 9.4%. This is good progress, but we recognise there is much more to do and will continue to improve operational efficiency throughout our supply chain – and build more food donation partnerships across our stores.
- Waste less, Save more: We now have 17 trials either live or soon to begin within our Waste less, Save more town of Swadlincote where we are working with the community to help households reduce food waste at home. We are testing a range of initiatives in Swadlincote to establish the most effective ways to reduce household food waste, before sharing learnings nationwide. Key successes to date include the giveaway of fridge thermometers to help people store food at the right temperature, and working with local schools to help the next generation understand and tackle food waste.
- Carbon dioxide reductions: In June we became the first company in the world to trial a refrigerated delivery truck cooled by a liquid nitrogen powered engine, eliminating all emissions associated with refrigeration. During the three-month trial the vehicle is expected to have saved up to 1.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide; the equivalent of driving over 14,500 km in a modern family car. That’s 10 trips from Land’s End to John O’Groats!
- Clothes collection: Since January we have collected over 1,500 tonnes of clothes, equivalent to 4.7 million individual garments, for Oxfam.
- Making a positive difference to our community
- Local Charity of the Year: This year marked the 8th year of our annual Local Charity campaign, which ran in stores and online in June. Since it began, the programme has raised over £11 million for local charities. This year’s campaign received its highest ever number of votes with more than 1.9 million votes cast, an increase of more than 440% since last year. We are delighted that customers and colleagues have been so engaged. As a result, more than 1,200 new local charity partnerships have been confirmed for this year, and we expect these to bring in around £2 million for good causes in the year ahead.
- Community and Environment Thought Leadership: We hosted a Community and Environment thought leadership session in July, focusing on how we can help communities across the UK minimise food waste in the home and share the learnings of our Waste less, Save more pilot year in Swadlincote. Guests included representatives from South Derbyshire Council, experts on social and environmental issues including WRAP, Global Action Plan, Hubbub, The Crowd and Olio.
- FoodCycle produced a delicious three course meal for guests using surplus food. Discussions generated some forward-thinking ideas, including: use of surplus food in corporate canteens and restaurants, encouraging communal sharing of food in workplace kitchens and displaying storage tips on packaging and in supermarket aisles.
- The Battle of the Somme: To commemorate the start of the Battle of the Somme, we are selling commemorative pin badges online and remembrance rosebushes in stores between July and November with all profits to Royal British Legion. From August, we will also be the exclusive retailer of Royal British Legion poppy seeds to support their aim of increasing wild poppies before the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 2018. So far these have raised more than £20,000 for the charity.
- A great place to work
- Awards: In September, we were awarded a Gold accreditation by Investors in People for the third time. We’re the largest employer to have reached the Gold standard and the only retailer to achieve three consecutive Gold awards. As part of the review, Investors in People considered how we listen and act on colleague feedback, how we develop and support our colleagues to learn and how we spot talent. Discussions with colleagues were then measured against Investors in People’s rigorous framework – a set of criteria focused around nine different indicators in the areas of leadership, colleague support and recognition, and professional development. To achieve the prestigious gold accreditation, we had to meet all nine indicators at the developed and established levels, and seven of the nine indicators at the advanced level.
- Diversity: At the end of June we hosted our first ever British, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) networking event for 200 colleagues, the focus of which was personal and career development. We are now starting to hold local BAME networking events across our Retail regions. We ran a Disability Focus Week in July which focused on non-visible disabilities and included guidance on communicating with deaf customers. Over the summer, colleagues participated in Pride events up and down the country.
- Colleague engagement: In August, we carried out our first retail Talkback wave of 2016/17, with almost 37,000 colleagues taking part in the survey. Overall, our retail colleague engagement score is 68%, which represents a one point increase year-on-year, suggesting our leadership teams remain very focused on engaging our colleagues. Our colleague advocacy also remains consistently high with 78% of colleagues saying they would tell their friends or family that Sainsbury’s is a great place to work.
- Apprenticeships: In September, we welcomed ten apprentices onto the new Software Developer programme in our rapidly growing Digital and Technology team, three of whom are existing Sainsbury’s colleagues. This includes three women which is 20% above the industry standard for women who started on IT apprenticeships in England last year. We continue to research a range of new Apprenticeships, in addition to the existing apprenticeships we run already at Sainsbury’s, in preparation for the Apprenticeship Levy which will be introduced in April 2017.
- Colleague pay: In July, we announced a 4% increase to our standard Rewarding Great Service (RGS) base rates for our retail Band 2 and Band 3 colleagues, effective from 28th August 2016. This is a further increase in rates of pay and means that our standard RGS band 2 rate of pay is £7.66ph (excluding location pay). This ensures we remain significantly ahead of the new National Living Wage of £7.20ph.