Sainsbury's has announced that its last remaining in-store cafes are set to be axed. The supermarket is also due to close its popular hot food, pizza and patisserie counters, with the products set to be relocated to shelves. The controversial change is part of ongoing plans to create more space for 'fresh food ranges' and new self-service bread slicing stations. Sainsbury's revealed that shoppers had not used its cafes regularly enough too, though food halls and concessions have spiked in popularity.
The announcement, released today, also stated that more than 3,000 jobs will be cut from its 148,000-strong workforce. Around 20% of these roles are related to senior management departments, according to BristolLive, which asserts that Sainsbury's is keen to simplify the structure of its head office.
Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s Chief Executive, said: "We launched our Next Level Strategy almost a year ago and are totally focused on making good food joyful, accessible and affordable for everyone, every day. "As a result, we’re seeing real momentum across our business, with a best-ever value position, leading quality and increasing market share. As we accelerate into year two and beyond of our strategy, we are facing into a particularly challenging cost environment which means 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.".
