Sainsbury's to expand Local convenience business

Sainsbury’s is poised to expand its Local convenience store chain and create up to 4,000 new jobs across its whole business in 2009.

Further details of the expansion will be available next month but the news contrasts sharply with rival Marks & Spencer, which is cutting 1,200 jobs and closing 25 Simply Food convenience stores.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told Global Convenience Store Focus, the retailer is still “thrashing out plans” for the Local chain and would be in a position to reveal more details at the end of February.

“A lot of the jobs have been attributed to convenience stores but that is not wholly correct. The figure is a guideline for future jobs in new stores and for Christmas temps that we keep on. It is a very rough ‘guesstimate’ for the whole of the business,” she said.

Sainsbury’s currently operates around 300 Local stores.

It first announced it was accelerating growth in the convenience chain at the interim stage in November 2008.

Back then, Sainsbury’s said it would open 50 new stores in 2009/10, doubling to 100 in 2010/2011.

Last month, Sainsbury’s said it had enjoyed its best-ever Christmas sales performance with like-for-like sales up by 4.5% in the 13 weeks to 3 January 2009.

Sales of its Basics value own label range performed particularly well, up 40% year-on-year.

The company also had its busiest-ever trading day on 23 December, with 22.6m transactions in the week before Christmas.