Sainsbury’s has announced price cuts to its meat and poultry categories as the supermarket’s Christmas sales fell for the first time in a decade.
In a bid to keep up with discounters Lidl and Aldi, Coupe revealed price cuts to its meat, fish and poultry categories this week, as part of a £150m price cut programme announced in November.
“For example, the regular price of our 260g boneless cod fillets has dropped from £4 to £3.30 and the regular price of a Sainsbury’s 1.35kg British whole chicken has fallen by a £1 from £4.50 to £3.50,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the supermarket released its third-quarter results, showing like-for-like (LFL) sales to be down 1.7%. Total sales also fell 0.4%. And chief executive Mike Coupe said the rest of the financial year would “remain challenging”.
Despite falling Christmas sales, Coupe said the week before Christmas was a “record-breaking” period, with more than 29.5m transactions.
“The outlook for the remainder of the financial year is set to remain challenging, with food price deflation likely to continue. Our performance in the third quarter showed an improving trend quarter-on-quarter.”
Coupe predicted the supermarket’s fourth quarter LFL sales to be similar to those during the first half of the year due to “the uncertainty in the trading environment”, food price deflation and the price reductions announced this week.
Tesco and Marks & Spencer are both due to release trading updates for the Christmas period on Thursday.