That’s more like it. Sainsbury’s today updated an expectant world on its second quarter trading and, in the context of the current market, the numbers are very impressive.
A couple of years ago, quarterly like-for-likes up 2.9% wouldn’t have seemed spectacular. Now it’s a different story.
No update feels complete without a chief executive gloomily lamenting the tough/turbulent/tumultuous market (in case the rest of us hadn’t noticed).
But while Sir Terry Leahy was yesterday bemoaning the tailwinds and headwinds buffeting Tesco, Sainsbury’s is serenely riding out the storm.
“In isolation the numbers are robust,” says Verdict analyst Neil Saunders. “The relatively slim results from Tesco make them look all the more weighty.”
Yesterday Verdict suggested Tesco was failing to cash in on its non-food opportunities. By contrast, Justin King today claimed Sainsbury’s is growing the non-food part of its offer three times as fast as the quiches and flapjacks.
Instead the issue facing the UK’s most orange supermarket (and maybe its most orange chief executive) is adding enough space.
Tomorrow’s trading update from Marks & Spencer should tell us more about the ‘return to quality’ giving momentum to Sainsbury’s and the increasingly confident Waitrose.
Meanwhile, this weekend’s edition of The Grocer will be doing some serious number-crunching for a couple of other very sizeable retailers. We don’t want to give the game away just yet, but it’s fair to say there are some nasty surprises in store.
All of which should make the figures from Sainsbury’s look rosier still.
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