Time-poor shoppers who have gone back to the office are ditching Lidl and Aldi for Sainsbury’s, its CEO Simon Roberts has insisted.
The supermarket boss claimed major grocers like Sainsbury’s had returned to popularity as customers seek to buy all their groceries in one place, instead of searching around multiple shops for bargains.
Roberts said during the pandemic “customers would have come to us for some products and they might have gone to one of the limited-choice discounters for other”.
“Now there’s a lot more on for people. There’s been this return to the office and, especially around Christmas, we’re all short of time”.
He added that shoppers were “busy trying to manage a family, get to work, get the kids from school, get back in time”.
As a result of this, Sainsbury’s wider grocery range compared to Aldi and Lidl has helped it win over shoppers, according to The Telegraph.
Speaking to the publication, Roberts said: “We’re seeing customers doing trolleys with more products in more regularly. That’s quite a shift from where we were three years ago.”
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The news comes as Sainsbury’s saw its biggest rise in customers in ten years last month.
While the supermarket’s share of the grocery market rose to 15.6% at the end of November, Aldi’s market share fell from 9.7% to 9.6%, according to Kantar.
As the grocer gains market share from the discounters, Roberts is getting ready to move to his next stage of his plan for Sainsbury’s to remain competitive in the sector.
The CEO is preparing the next stage of his supermarket’s ‘Food First’ plan, designed to reduce costs, with details to be revealed in February.
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