Store of the week: Sainsbury's Burnley

Congratulations. How do you feel? I’m delighted. This is my second win - and it’s also my 25th anniversary at Sainsbury’s this year. The company wrote to me offering me a catalogue gift up to the value of about £900 and a celebratory dinner with senior management. It’s good to get recognition.

Our shopper was very impressed with customer service. How do you keep staff motivated? I’ve just completed a training programme called ‘in the customer’s shoes’. The package involves understanding our customer base and their needs. It’s been completed within the past month and has made a massive difference.

Sainsbury’s annual results this week show own label is doing well. Is that something you’ve seen in store? We’ve definitely seen customers purchasing both Basics and Taste the Difference. We’re getting the message across that it’s not just about price alone. Although we do Brand Match, which is just on brands, more and more customers are buying own label. We also do in-store sampling.

What do you do better than your competitors? We have had a Tesco open recently but we’ve had a successful year against them. When you have a competitor open you expect a drop in customers, but Tesco has been there for 12 months and we’ve achieved the same sales. We didn’t lose customers due to Nectar and great availability.

Have you introduced anything new in store? We’ve tried something new this week - when we have a special offer, we put our own label on the same level of brands like Heinz or Kellogg’s. There are special offer plinths with Sainsbury’s own-label products and a brand. The promotion is called ‘Try the By Sainsbury’s range’. What we’ve changed on the shelves is that on the left side Kellogg’s is on special offer and on the same shelf Sainsbury’s own label is also on offer - but significantly cheaper.