Sainsbury's has kicked off a major operational overhaul of its trading teams in a bid to re-energise the business and meet its additional sales target of £3.5bn.

The restructured trading department, which includes the realignment of 15 categories and the creation of two new categories for 'food on the move' and 'take home counter' teams, is intended to mark a cultural change for the supermarket. It is the first key head office change since Sainsbury's announced in May it would up sales by £3.5bn by 2010.

Trading director Mike Coupe said he introduced the new structure to "put the right resources into the right places".

He wants to change its culture to create a "faster, more fluid and more responsive" business, adding the move also created opportunities for suppliers.

Each team will also have a dedicated range planner and category planner to improve category focus. Previously five planners shared responsibility across the categories. "We now have our total range right and can look at that extra level of detail, such as putting the right range into smaller stores."

"Food is still at the heart of our business and is where two-thirds of our sales growth will come from," said Coupe.

"We need to get back to our first principle of delivering food excellence and be closer to customers. We want to get products to market faster, which is an opportunity, as well as a challenge, for suppliers."

There will be another four trading teams for health and beauty, as well as an enlarged non food and a fully integrated clothing team working to drive the Tu range forward.

"Our non food team has been growing and there is still a significant level of recruitment going on. We are exploring options on how to move our non food business forward."

The huge changes for the Tu clothing team over the past three years culminated last week in the complete integration of Adams, which used to run Sainsbury's kids clothing business. "That is a massive step for us as we will have complete control of our own destiny for the first time," he added.

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