When Sainsbury’s opened its first self-service supermarket in Croydon in 1950, one lady threw a wire basket at Alan Sainsbury, the joint managing director, for his effrontery in expecting her to serve herself. We must hope that the annual shareholders’ meeting in London on July 6 will be better-behaved, even though investors’ patience has been tested in recent years. The shares, which were as high as 600p in 2007, fell to 170p last October before mounting a decent recovery.
With a market share of 15.5 per cent, J Sainsbury trails Tesco’s 27.5 per cent and is neck-and-neck with Asda. Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi, meanwhile, draw in shoppers keen to find affordable food in the teeth of rampant inflation.
Although Sainsbury’s has done well to outstrip
