Sainsbury's boss insists food prices are starting to fall in boost for shoppers

04 July 2023 , 14:45

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Sainsbury’s boss Simon Roberts (Image: PA)

The boss of Sainsbury’s says prices are “starting to fall”, but won’t go back to where they were.

Chief executive Simon Roberts insisted it was “fully committed to passing on savings to our customers.”

It follows claims that some in the food industry are guilty of “greedflation” - using inflation to boost profits.

Sainsbury’s has announced that sales in the 16 weeks to late June jumped almost 10%.

Mr Roberts, whose pay and perks leapt from £3.6million to almost £5million last year, said Sainsbury’s had invested over £60million in cutting prices since March.

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“Prices on our top 100 selling products are now lower than they were in March, against a market where prices have gone up,” he added.

Prices at supermarkets will remain higher than they were (PA)

But Mr Roberts warned food prices in Britain would not return to where they were before Russia ’s invasion of Ukraine, when a number of key commodities from wheat to oil surged in cost.

“We should just remember that energy costs are still high and labour costs have been elevated permanently,” he said.

“So we would expect inflation to continue to improve, but it’s not going to go back to where it was.”

Latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics show food inflation eased slightly in May but remained at a stubbornly high 18.4%.

Mr Roberts said the chain had seen its own prices at “less than half the headline rate” of food inflation.

The results came a day after the Competition and Markets Authority slammed supermarkets for not reducing fuel prices enough.

Graham Hiscott