Sainsbury’s has confirmed when it will close its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters. The supermarket first announced it would shut these stations in a major update back in January, but did not provide an exact date for when they will close.
However, in its latest financial results, Sainsbury’s has now confirmed its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters will close “by early summer”. The supermarket said: “By early Summer we will have closed patisserie, hot food and pizza counters and are making the most popular items available in aisles.
“We have now closed all remaining Sainsbury’s Cafés and we are converting our scratch bakeries to bake-off, driving improvements in quality, value and availability throughout the day. From the Autumn, we will create new On the Go hubs with flexiserve hot food offerings, delivering an improved customer experience.”
It comes after Sainsbury’s closed 61 in-store cafes earlier this month, with the supermarket saying that customers aren’t use them regularly. These shut on April 11. Sainsbury’s also revealed it will cut head office jobs, resulting in the loss of about 20% of its senior management roles.
At the time, Sainsbury’s said all these changes combined will result in more than 3,000 jobs being cut. Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s chief executive, said: “As we accelerate into year two and beyond of our strategy, we are facing into a particularly challenging cost environment.
“We have had to make tough choices about where we can afford to invest and where we need to do things differently to make our business more efficient and effective.
“The decisions we are announcing today are essential to ensure we continue to drive forward our momentum but have also meant some difficult choices impacting our dedicated colleagues in a number of parts of our business. We’ll be doing everything we can to support anyone impacted by today’s announcements.”
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Sainsbury’s has said its profits will be flat over the next year as it faces pressure to slash prices like its rivals. Full-year sales, excluding fuel, rose by 4.2% to £26.6billion, while retail underlying operating profits rose by 7.2% to £1.03billion for the year.
The supermarket told shareholders that these profits will be about £1billion for the new financial year. Earlier this month, rival Tesco said it would see weaker profits as it sets more money aside to invest in price cuts, while Asda returning boss Allan Leighton said it would slash prices in a bid to turn around its fortunes.
Sainsbury’s said it has invested £1billion in improving its pricing. It comes as businesses faced increased costs after the rate of National Insurance paid by employers rose from 13.8% to 15%, while the earnings threshold was lowered from £9,100 per year to £5,000.
On top of this, minimum wage has also gone up. The minimum wage for workers aged 21 and over has risen from £11.44 an hour to £12.21 an hour, from £8.60 an hour to £10 an hour for those aged 18 to 20, and from £6.40 an hour to £7.55 an hour for under-18s and apprentices.
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