Dear customer,
 
I am writing to remind and reassure you of the many steps we are taking to keep all our customers and our colleagues safe. In these challenging times I also wanted to thank you for your loyalty to Sainsbury’s and for your support for our colleagues. We very much appreciate it.
 
Keeping everyone safe in our stores
 
Over the past six months we have worked hard to adapt our stores to make them safe for you to shop in and for our colleagues to work in. Since March we have had social distancing rules in place across every Sainsbury’s supermarket, convenience store and Argos store. We have installed perspex safety screens across all our stores, we have installed hand sanitising stations at the entrance of every Sainsbury’s and Argos store and we continue to operate a one-way system in smaller shops.
 
These measures, alongside the great efforts made by communities to come together and support those most in need, mean that we are well prepared to ensure that everyone has safe access to food and other essential items, however they choose to shop with us.
 
Changes following recent government guidance - face coverings and cafés
 
We have provided all Sainsbury’s and Argos colleagues with face coverings and all colleagues now wear face coverings when they are working on the shop floor and not behind a safety screen. From today, we would also ask all our customers to respect our request to wear a face covering when shopping with us – this benefits both you and our colleagues, making sure everyone feels safe in our stores. We have regular tannoy announcements, posters and floor markings in our stores reminding you to wear a mask and to keep a safe distance from other customers and our colleagues. Greeters will be on hand outside all supermarkets and busy convenience stores to remind customers to wear face coverings when they enter stores. If you do not have a face covering when you arrive at a store, our colleagues will help you find one. Thank you for your support and understanding.
 
Having closed our cafes in March, I am pleased to let you know that we will be re-opening them next Wednesday 30th September with new safety measures in place. These include perspex safety screens at the tills and coffee points, hand sanitising stations, tables distanced two metres apart and one way systems where necessary. We will also be asking customers who choose to eat in with us to fill in their details for NHS Test and Trace.
 
Digital shopping, online and in-store
 
I know many of you have recently started shopping with Sainsbury’s online and found this to be a convenient way to get your groceries. We have worked hard to more than double the number of online slots and significantly expanded Click and Collect for any customers unable to get a home delivery slot. We can now offer 700,000 weekly slots and we will keep growing that number over the coming weeks and months to ensure we provide you with the best service we can. We have also recently started offering Delivery Pass memberships again.
 
Many of you have also been enjoying using SmartShop in Sainsbury’s supermarkets, which helps you spend less time in store and reduces contact by letting you scan your own shopping and check out through a dedicated till area. SmartShop is now available in all of our supermarkets and we have been rapidly rolling out SmartShop Mobile Pay to Sainsbury’s convenience stores, offering till-free and contactless shopping. The app will be live in over 250 Sainsbury’s Locals by the end of next week. Please ask one of our colleagues if you would like to know more about how Smartshop can help you shop safely and also save you time.
 
Supporting each other
 
I hope you will agree that our colleagues across Sainsbury’s and Argos have been working really hard over recent months to look after you and all our customers. We ask you to please play your part in helping them and other customers by only buying what you need at this time. If all our customers continue to buy just what they need, there will continue to be good availability of all our products for everyone.
 
I am pleased to see that our recent customer satisfaction results have shown that our customers feel very safe shopping in our stores but, as always, if you think there is anything else we should be doing that would make your shopping experience easier or better then please do get in touch with me. We have worked hard to listen and respond to your feedback throughout the pandemic so far and we remain very committed to listen and adapt to all your comments and suggestions. Please get in contact if there is something we can do to improve our service for you.
 
I know this is an uncertain time and things are changing quickly. I will be in touch to let you know about any changes we need to make over the coming weeks. Until then, we will continue to do everything we can to help feed the nation and serve you as best we can.
 
Best wishes,
 
Simon