Next year, Sainsbury’s, which has long maintained a place on the podium of Britain’s leading supermarkets will reach its sesquicentennial milestone – 150 years in the grocery retailing trade. Over the last 20-plus years the company has had to content itself with the runner-up position in the market leadership ladder of supermarket chains, trailing the seemingly ubiquitous and dynamic Tesco which has swept all before it. Nevertheless, Sainsbury’s has carved itself a distinctive and impressive notch among the titans of modern British retailing since it first opened for business in the Victorian era.

Foundation years, butter and establishing the Sainsbury style
In 1869 the newly wed John James Sainsbury, founded Sainsbury’s in partnership with his wife, Mary Ann Sainsbury (née Staples). The two opened their first dairy goods shop at 173 Drury Lane, Holborn (London). Mrs Sainsbury played an active role in the business, in the early years she effectively managed the Drury Lane shop, making it “famous for the quality of its butter”. As Sainsbury’s built its formative business reputation largely on product quality, Mary Ann (the daughter of a dairyman) insisted on fresh milk on the shop’s shelves, as well as, that the Dutch supplier of Sainbury’s butter date-stamp every unit item it supplied [‘The History of Sainsbury’s – Trying Something New for 147 Years’, (Darren Turner, 11 Nov.), www.s4rb.com]. The freshness and purity of Sainsbury’s butter gave it a commercial edge over the competition in an era known for widespread food adulteration (eg, it was a common practice for milk to be watered down) [Judi Bevan, ‘Battle of the Supermarkets’, RSA Journal, Vol. 152, No 5517 (June 2003)].

In the 19th century Sainsbury’s rivals in the grocery game were shops like Lipton’s and Home and Colonial Stores. Early on John J Sainsbury developed a business model which made the shops stand out from the other grocers by doing things differently. Appearance was important to Sainsbury, the shops were clean and hygienic, on offer were “high-quality products and fresh provisions at prices even London’s poor could afford” (an early shop slogan was “Quality perfect, prices lower”).

A gradualist approach to growth
John J Sainsbury, whose motto could well have been “Make haste slowly”✱, was in no hurry to expand the business. From the Drury Lane foundations he gradually added a shop in Kentish Town and then two more in the new railway suburb⊡. It wasn’t until 1882 that Sainbury made his first move outside London, establishing a shop in Croydon, one that specifically sought to cater for a middle-class clientele, selling comestibles which were in the luxury range (foreign cheeses, poultry and game birds, cooked meat delicacies, etc) [‘Sainsbury family’, (Bridget Salmon), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (23-IX-2004), www.odnb.com].

Even well into the 20th century century each new Sainsbury’s store was a matter of measured deliberation…the company continued “to place the highest priority on quality, taking the time to weigh each decision, whether it meant researching suppliers for a new product, assessing the reliability of a new supplier, or measuring the business potential of a new site” [‘J Sainsbury plc History’, Funding Universe, www.fundinguniverse.com].

During John J Sainsbury’s tenure in charge, the company established what was to become the Sainsbury’s “house style”, stores which were elaborately decorated in contrast with the other (typically drab) grocers of the day. The key to the company’s success was covering all of the bases…John James would price-match the competition while at the same time offering higher standards of quality, service and hygiene. Moreover, the likes of Home and Colonial and Lipton’s, while having numerically more shops, could not match Sainsbury’s range of products [ibid.].

Sainsbury’s “Own Brands”
Although “own brands” are thought of as a modern phenomena in retail merchandising, Sainsbury’s first introduced the concept as early as 1882! The shop’s first own brand was its staple commodity – butter. Sainsbury’s continued this practice and by the 1950s there was a host of such offerings on the shelves: ‘Sainsbury’s Cornflakes’, ‘Sainsbury’s Snax Biscuits’, ‘Sainsbury’s Cola’, ‘Sainsbury’s Peas and Carrots’, etc, etc. [‘The History of Sainsbury’s’, loc.cit.]. By 1980 half of the products Sainsbury’s sold were under its own label [Bevan, op.cit.].

Modernising Sainsbury’s
In 1950 Sainsbury’s refitted one of its earliest shops, in West Croydon, creating what was Britain’s first supermarket proper, one of the country’s earliest to operate as fully self-service. Some customers were at first put off by the innovation, thinking it impersonal and “anti-social”, however the convenience factor of not having to wait to be served eventually won out…Advertising and Marketing magazine reviewing the new store concluded: “From the point of view of the customer the chief advantages of self-service shopping are the speed with which shopping can be done and the ease with which one is reminded of things needed…these advantages substantially outweigh the disadvantages of not getting the personal attention of the assistant.” [‘Sainsbury ‘s return to site of first self-service supermarket’, (Graham Ruddick), The Telegraph (UK), 30-Aug-2013, www.telegraph.co.uk].

Although under its founder Sainsbury’s had been reluctant to get too big too quickly, once the company passed to his successor, son John Benjamin Sainsbury✫, the number of stores grew (though still at a trademark cautious pace). Under the strong leadership of a string of postwar CEOs (such as (John) Baron Sainsbury of Preston Candover), this trend was maintained❂.

Although Sainsbury’s followed a typically cautious approach to its business model, the company couldn’t be accused of dragging its feet when it came to embracing new technology. In the early Sixties they were the first retailer in Britain to develop a computerised distribution system and their stores were among the first to turf out electronic cash registers in favour of scanners in the late Eighties [‘J Sainsbury plc’, www.company-histories.com].

In 1973 the company went public under the holding co name J Sainsbury plc after being floated on the stock market. The 1970s witnessed increasing competition from discounters and a squeezing of profit margins, prompting an escalation in diversification…non-food items started to appear on Sainsbury’s shelves. It also innovated with the advent of ‘Savacentre’ hypermarkets and ‘Homebase’ house and garden centres. Overseas expansion was concentrated in the US – Sainsbury’s acquired Shaw’s Supermarkets, Giant Food Inc and Star Markets (its holdings in Shaw’s were unloaded in 2004).

Stumble and renewal
During the Nineties, Sainsbury’s, hitherto accustomed to being the premier supermarket chain, was relegated to second place by Tesco which became supermarket “top dog” in the UK in 1995. A change-up was required at Sainsbury’s and further diversification was sought. In 1997 the company ventured into in-store banking (in partnership with the Bank of Scotland – before going it alone in 2014). During this period the 130-year direct involvement in running the company of the Sainsbury family came to an end with the retirement of David (Lord) Sainsbury. The acquisition of Bells Stores in the early 2000s signalled a move into convenience stores, adding to the variety of its retail outlets.

Sainsbury’s – status quo in 2018 and future fortunes?
In the contemporary British retail landscape, Sainsbury’s, with a healthy slab of the market, is the second largest chain in the country✥ with ≻1415 stores (2017) and ≻186,900 employees (2018). Despite having long conceded first place to Tesco, this state of play is a fluid one…no longer dominated by the Sainsbury family (though it retains 15% of shares in the company), these days the majority shareholder is the Qatar Investment Authority (note comparisons with Harrods). 2018 has seen Sainsbury’s unearth a bold attempt to unseat Tesco’s hegemony through a planned merger with ASDA which would give the merged entity around 30-31% of the UK market – as against about 27.5% for Tesco (Source: Kantar). Approval of the controversial merger is still pending but could depend upon Sainsbury’s and ASDA offloading 463 of their stores to win over the competition ‘watchdog’ (CMA) [‘Walmart’s Asda agrees to UK merger deal with Sainsbury’s’, (Silvia Amaro) 30-Apr-2018, www.cnbc.com; ‘Sainsbury’s and Asda may have to offload 460 stores to seal merger’, (Sarah Butler), The Guardian, 28-Sep-2018, www.theguardian.com].

Footnote: A “leg-up” for UK supermarkets
As the age of postwar austerity and scarcity gave way to an era of abundance and growth in the 1960s, supermarket heavyweights like Sainsbury’s and Tesco led the way. The supermarket chains on their expansionary arcs was facilitated by legislative changes affecting the retail sector. The abolition of resale price maintenance (RPM)✧ by the British Board of Trade in 1964 was a total game-changer! RPM had allowed (especially large) manufacturers to dictate terms to retailers, the law change shifted the balance in favour of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and co, who now could lord it over even the largest of manufacturers like Unilever and Procter & Gamble [James Buchan, Review of Trolley Wars by Judi Bevan, The Guardian, 30-Apr-2005].

PostScript: How Tesco outmanoeuvred and outgunned Sainsbury’s
One of the key moves made by Tesco was to take careful note of what the older retailer was doing right (eg, offering quality in goods and service) and copying it! (in “Tesco-speak” this is called ‘benchmarking’ the opposition) [Bevan, op.cit.]. As Tesco grew incrementally it benefitted from a “virtuous circle” of business⊙. The sheer, monolithic size of Tesco allows it to buy merchandise more cheaply and accordingly sell it more cheaply. Ergo, they turn over more customers and make greater sales, and so the cycle is sustains itself [Buchan loc.cit.]. Tesco has a reputation for following intuitive hunches…being less risk adverse than other major supermarkets like Sainsbury’s it happily ventured into lower class, ‘brownfield’ areas that its competitors wouldn’t touch [Bevan, op.cit.].

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✱ Festina lente – the motto of Roman emperors Augustus and Titus, et al
⊡ a calculated, gradual approach to expansion suited John James who had a very hands-on management style, by temperament he was a “micro-manager”, immersing himself in the minutiae of the shops’ everyday transactions
✫ known for his focus on staff welfare and remembered by one of his senior staff as a “benevolent dictator”, [‘Sainsbury family’, loc.cit.]
❂ there have so many Sainsbury family members involved in the company, in British politics, in art patronage and philanthropy, to almost necessitate a scorecard
✥ although it briefly conceded second place to the Walmart owned ASDA in 2003/2004
✧ Resale price maintenance (or retail price maintenance) is a practice where the distributor agrees to sell at a price set by the manufacturer
⊙ a business scenario the Financial Times described as “hard to create, but (also) hard to disrupt”