The Business Review

Welcome to Sainsbury’s Online Review for the financial year ’06-’07. You’ll find details of the results we achieved last year and the progress that we’ve made towards the targets that we set some two years ago, back in October 2004. And it’s a result of the great progress we’ve made towards achieving those targets that we’ve also been able to lay out new objectives for the next three years. And all the details are contained within the report.

Our business is better today because of the difference we’ve made for our customers. Our prices are sharper, our quality is much improved, and the environment in-store is much better than it’s been for many years. All of that means more customers shop with us, and that’s why we’ve been able to deliver nine consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth.

However, it’s not just the hard and fast things in our stores that make a difference for customers. Increasingly, they are concerned about our impact on the environment; the way that we source. And Sainsbury’s have demonstrated real leadership here. We announced a move, and have nearly completed, 100% Fairtrade bananas. We’ve also been leaders in plastic bags, encouraging recycling and re-use, and our free plastic bag now contains a large recycled content. All of these things lead the industry, and nobody has yet been able to follow.

But it’s not just big things like these. It’s small things as well. Our colleague suggestion scheme ‘Tell Justin’ has now had 17,000 suggestions. Many of these are quite small, but we’ve implemented nearly 2,000 of them. So collectively, they’re making a huge difference for colleagues and customers.

So I hope you’ll find things that interest and excite you – and as shareholders, please you – in what we’ve been doing in the last year. We know we still have a long way to go, but we are proud of what we’ve achieved so far.