‘It’s going to be tough’: Sainsbury’s chief on price cuts, inflation and energy costs

Simon Roberts says the new Sainsbury’s pricing regime has not been at the expense of the reputation for quality. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Simon Roberts spent his Christmas Eve in a van, helping bring groceries to Sainsbury’s shoppers’ homes as part of an initiative to make festive deliveries as close to the big day as possible.

The chief executive of the UK’s second-largest supermarket chain says the experiment, which involved holding back thousands of turkeys ordered by online shoppers to arrive on Christmas Eve, was part of “thinking differently” as it seeks new ways to succeed in a fiercely competitive sector.