Sainsbury's to double British food sales by 2020

The ’20 by 20’ plan sets out 20 sustainability targets to achieve by 2020, which will include the British produce push, the slashing of carbon emissions, community-building exercises and ‘championing’ its staff.

Sainsbury’s will aim to increase sales of British food from today’s figure of £4bn to £8bn by 2020 as part of a ‘Best for British’ aspiration.

The sustainability commitment will also be driven by a fair trade push with the retailer looking to increase its sales of "fairly traded products" to a total of £1bn by 2020, up from the current figure of £280m.

Sainsbury’s says it was the largest retailer of Fairtrade-certified products last year, with one in every four pounds spent on Fairtrade goods in the UK being spent in a Sainsbury’s store.  

The retailer is hoping to cut 30% of its operational carbon emissions by 2020 through developing new technologies including CO2 refrigeration, biomass boilers and ground source heat pumps.

Sainsbury’s chief executive, Justin King, said: "Given the scale of our business, we believe these 20 commitments represent the most ambitious sustainability targets in our industry.

"This represents another step in helping our customers live well for less, following hot on the heels of our re-launch of by Sainsbury’s [own brand range] and Brand Match. The 20 by 20 shows customers that they can indeed have greater quality at lower prices, without compromising on standards or their values."

Sainsbury’s is launching a TV campaign today (12 October) pushing its Brand Match initiative, which promises to match the prices of brands sold by Tesco and Asda.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk