Sainsbury's on 140 years of values-driven business

We were interested to catch Sainsbury's new ad to celebrate their 140^th birthday this week. It traces the history of the supermarket through some of the values-led decisions that have defined the business.

This week also saw Sainsbury�s posting a better-than-expected 11.3% hike in annual profits to �543 million. Like-for-like sales rose 4.5%, excluding fuel, in the year to March 21.

For many this will be evidence that Sainsbury's combination of recession-friendly campaigns (Jamie Oliver's Feed Your Family for a Fiver, Switch and Save) and high profile commitments to ethical practice (in February it became the first of the big four to ban battery chicken eggs) is proving to be a winning formula.

However, Ian King warned in a piece in Wednesday�s Times that the latest industry switching data suggests that Sainsbury's is losing sales to discounters Aldi and Lidl as well as Asda. We�ll be watching closely to see how the battle for customers plays out over the recession�