Preliminary Results for the 52 weeks ended 28 February 2026

Preliminary Results for the 52 weeks ended 28 February 2026

Consistently delivering for customers, colleagues, suppliers and shareholders 

Simon Roberts, Chief Executive of J Sainsbury plc, said:

“More and more customers are choosing Sainsbury’s for more of their shopping, trusting us to deliver great value day in day out. The conflict in the Middle East means customers are even more focused on the cost of living and we are absolutely committed to making sure everyone gets the best possible value when they shop with us.

“By staying relentlessly focused on the things that matter most - value, quality, availability and service – we have outperformed the market for the sixth year in a row. Rather than pass through the full extent of cost inflation, we invested to sustain the strength of our competitive position while also refreshing stores, improving digital experiences and increasing colleague pay by five per cent.

“We offer the biggest Aldi Price Match in the market, with great prices on everyday essentials and even more value through Nectar Prices and personalised Your Nectar Prices. Alongside our standout fresh food offer and the growing strength of Taste the Difference, we are well placed to be first choice for more customers.

“Long term partnerships with thousands of farmers and suppliers are key to delivering good food at great value. We have committed to invest more than £5 billion in British and Irish farming over the coming years, making our supply base more resilient at a time of increased challenges.

“Our balanced choices reflect a consistent long-term approach to creating value for shareholders: strengthening our relationships with customers, colleagues and suppliers and building a stronger Sainsbury’s for the future.

“We will do everything we can to support our customers and colleagues over the coming months, with absolute focus on keeping prices low. We have made a positive start to the new financial year, with continued strong Grocery momentum.

“I would like to thank all our colleagues, farmers and suppliers for their brilliant commitment and hard work - it’s their dedication that makes such a difference for our customers every time they shop with us."

Financial Highlights

• Sainsbury’s FY sales (excluding fuel) £25.9bn, up 4.9%, Argos FY sales £4.1bn, up 0.7%, Fuel FY sales £3.6bn, down 8.2%
• Grocery sales up 5.2%, with consistently strong volume growth and market share gains through the year
• Retail underlying operating profit £1,025m, down 1.1%, reflecting significant operating cost inflation and investment in value in a more competitive market. Argos profits broadly in line with last year
• Statutory profit after tax £393m, up 55.3%, primarily reflecting lower Financial Services discontinued operations losses and restructuring costs, with non-underlying items of £(115)m compared to £(251)m in the prior year
• Retail free cash flow of £574m, up 8.1%, helped by strong working capital management
• Underlying earnings per share up 3.2%, reflecting higher profit and lower average number of shares in issue as a result of our share buyback. Total basic earnings per share up 58.7%
• Proposed full year dividend of 13.7 pence per share, up 0.7%

2026/27 Outlook
We are in a strong competitive position after another year of good progress. We have made a positive start to the new financial year, with grocery volume growth ahead of the market. Argos trading continues to reflect a subdued general merchandise market.

We will continue to make deliberate, balanced choices to sustain this strong competitive position in the year ahead and expect to continue to outperform the grocery market. The conflict in the Middle East will impact both our customers and our business. The duration and extent of these impacts is very uncertain and this is reflected in our profit guidance, where we currently expect to deliver Total underlying operating profit of between £975 million and £1,075 million. We continue to expect to deliver Retail free cash flow of more than £500 million.

Capital Allocation

• In line with our progressive dividend policy, we paid ordinary dividends totalling £316 million in the year and completed a core share buyback of £200 million
• We additionally completed the disposal of our banking operations and returned £300 million of the net proceeds to shareholders through a £250 million special dividend and £50 million incremental share buyback
• We will return an additional £100 million of the net proceeds this year alongside a core buyback of £200 million, amounting to a total share buyback of £300 million

Strategic Highlights
As part of the Next Level Sainsbury’s plan that we set out in February 2024, we made eight commitments:

Reflecting on our progress two years into the plan, our balanced choices helped us make good progress against these commitments. We’ve invested to support our customers, our colleagues, our farmers and our suppliers and we have sustained our strong competitive position in an intensely competitive market⁵. More customers are trusting us to deliver our winning combination of value, quality, availability and service. As a result, we have delivered food volume growth ahead of the market for the sixth consecutive year, reaching our highest volume market share in ten years⁶.

The underlying profit leverage from this volume outperformance was offset by investment in our competitive position and by unusually high levels of operating cost inflation, only partially mitigated through the delivery of a further £330 million of structural cost savings. We delivered Retail free cash flow of £574 million, ahead of our expectations and we remain on track to exceed £1.6 billion over the three-year plan. Whilst maintaining that cash flow commitment, we are investing for future growth and to further strengthen our competitive advantage. We have also delivered enhanced cash returns to shareholders, with more than £800 million returned this year through dividends and share buybacks.

Our progress against the commitments is driven by four strategic outcomes: First choice for food, Loyalty everyone loves, More Argos, more often and Save and invest to win.

First choice for food

In a year where we faced an unusually high level of external cost pressures and a more competitive market, we were clear that our key objective was to sustain our strong competitive position and that we expected to continue to outperform the market. We delivered on this, making balanced choices throughout the year to maintain our strong value position against all key competitors⁵ and deliver volume outperformance in every quarter⁷.

More and more customers are choosing us for their big weekly shop⁸. We now have around 1.2 million more big trolley primary customers than five years ago⁹ and we continue to benefit from switching gains from competitors across the whole market¹⁰.

Customers want to access more of our food range in more locations and we are investing to grow our food footprint, rebalancing space towards fresh food in existing stores and opening new stores in key target locations. At the same time, we are going further to amplify the points of difference in our customer proposition, with a clear focus on delivering greater personalisation, improving the shopping experience both in-store and online and championing fresh food and innovation.

Our brand and heritage in fresh food sets us apart and as customers increasingly look for healthy and sustainable options, our reputation for fresh, nutritious, high quality and well-sourced food means we are well placed to be first choice for more customers. Our consistent delivery of great value at the centre of the plate continues to drive outperformance versus the market in key fresh food categories¹¹, supported by our continued focus on innovation and quality.

We are using our scale, reach and capabilities to drive positive change across the food system and are working closely with farmers and suppliers to strengthen the supply of good food, help tackle climate, nature and labour challenges and raise animal welfare standards. We are expanding our long-term partnership model so that by 2027 we will be supporting more than 2,500 British and Irish farms with long-term contracts. We have committed to invest more than £5 billion in British and Irish farming over the coming years.

c.£1.3 billion invested over the last five years to deliver consistently great value

• Maintained strong value position against all key competitors over the year⁵
• Unique value combination continues to resonate with customers: biggest Aldi Price Match in the market, more than 10,000 Nectar Price offers every week, personalised Your Nectar Prices and Nectar points offers
• Value investment focused on centre of the plate produce, dairy, meat, fish and poultry items customers buy most often, including 17 per cent more centre of the plate Aldi Price Match products year on year
• Delivered continued market outperformance in fresh food categories¹¹. Fresh food sales up eight per cent

Taste the Difference - fastest growing Premium Own Label in the market¹²

• Taste the Difference sales ahead of £2 billion target with Fresh food sales up 16 per cent
• More customers shopping bigger Taste the Difference baskets more frequently¹³
• 69 per cent of customers shopped both Aldi Price Match and Taste the Difference in the same trolley¹⁴

Championing good food

• More than 1,200 new Own Brand products launched during the year, of which around 50 per cent were Taste the Difference, including our new restaurant quality Discovery range
• Unique opportunity to support customers making healthy choices - increasing focus on fibre and high-protein diets
• Aldi Price Match now contains at least 75 per cent healthy and better for you products

Investing in colleagues and customer service

• Further investment in colleague wellbeing and development and pay and benefits, increasing colleague pay by more than 40 per cent over the last five years
• Continue to achieve high colleague engagement scores
• Consistently leading the market on overall customer satisfaction in supermarkets¹⁵
• Improvements across key metrics including value for money, product range, quality and availability¹⁵

Opening new stores in key target locations

• Opened ten new supermarkets, including two Co-op conversions and three Homebase conversions
• Sales to date ahead of forecast and continue to expect strong returns
• Additionally opened 33 new convenience stores, performing particularly well. Sales in some standout stores more than 50 per cent ahead of expectations
• Expect to open around ten new supermarkets in the year ahead and at least 20 new convenience stores, adding 0.5 per cent to sales growth in 2026/27

Continued good progress with three-year ‘More for More’ plan

• Bringing the best of Sainsbury’s to more customers through allocating more space to food, with selective investments in 70 supermarkets over the last two years, delivering strong results
• Customers are able to shop more of our food range, both in-store and through our Groceries Online offer, adding an average of almost 1,000 additional food products
• Invested stores performing ahead of the rest of our store estate, delivering two per cent food volume growth outperformance in the second half and improving total trading intensity by more than five per cent
• Will invest in around 30 further stores in the year ahead

Delivering for customers however they want to shop with us

• Groceries Online¹⁶ sales up 13 per cent
• Supported by growing contribution from OnDemand, with sales up 69 per cent to more than £700 million and now covering 70 per cent of the UK population
• Improving digital journey for customers by joining up Groceries Online, ChopChop and SmartShop apps into one coherent app, creating the foundation for future personalisation and AI-led experiences
• Convenience store sales up three per cent, supported by outperformance of new space and invested stores
• Improved customer satisfaction in key metrics including value for money and product range¹⁷, driven by reliable value through Aldi Price Match and fresh food range expansion

Playing a leading role in creating a more sustainable food system

• Extended commitment to long-term partnerships with UK farmers, creating one of the UK’s most extensive networks of multi-year farming agreements
• 60 per cent¹⁸ of own brand produce, meat, fish, dairy and poultry products in long-term agreements with more than 2,500 British and Irish farms supported by long-term contracts by early 2027

Campaigning for good food for everyone so that no child or family goes hungry

• Raised more than £26 million since 2022 in partnership with Comic Relief. Over 60 million meals donated and support provided to over two million people
• Almost doubled the tonnage of edible surplus food being donated to local communities, preventing 11,030 tonnes of surplus food going to waste, a 49 per cent increase year-on-year

Refreshed Plan for Better commitments for packaging and human rights

• New packaging targets reflect rapid regulatory and structural change in UK packaging sector, focusing our efforts on recyclability of materials to help improve circularity
• Refreshed Human Rights Policy and Saliency Assessment and delivered training to over 100 colleagues and over 700 supplier representatives to help increase awareness of human rights risks and strengthen due diligence
• New international programme with Comic Relief to proactively help strengthen climate adaptation, food security and resilience in key sourcing regions that are highly vulnerable to climate impacts

Strong growth and market outperformance in Tu Clothing¹⁹

• Elevated style credentials²⁰ and stronger availability delivers six per cent Tu Clothing volume growth
• Clothing sales up 4.8 per cent, with very strong Spring Summer offset by unseasonal second half weather
• Outperformed Clothing market for seven consecutive quarters¹⁹, with online sales growth of more than 20 per cent

Streamlining Sainsbury’s General Merchandise

• Sainsbury’s General Merchandise sales down 3.2 per cent, primarily reflecting expected volume decline driven by strategic choice to allocate more space to food
• Strong progress in streamlining General Merchandise reflecting market-driven shift of discretionary spend towards lower-priced categories
• Easier-to-shop customer offer with better everyday value and product availability
• Delivering higher trading intensity at a lower cost to serve - simpler store, supplier and supply chain operations

Smart Charge customer proposition improvements drive sales growth of 136 per cent

• Five new locations - 661 ultra-rapid electric vehicle charging bays now available in 80 stores
• Sales increase primarily driven by very strong like for like growth. More and more customers shopping with Sainsbury’s whilst they charge, shopping with us more often and benefiting from using Nectar with Smart Charge

Loyalty everyone loves

Customers can save more than £450 a year with Nectar, as well as collecting over £170 of Nectar Points through our well-established value proposition of Nectar Prices, personalised Your Nectar Prices, Nectar Offers and Nectar Points earned across a coalition of partners. Nectar participation has reached its highest ever level, with digital engagement strengthening in particular, as customers recognise the benefits of personalised, rewarding and integrated loyalty and value when they shop at Sainsbury’s.

The resulting growth of our loyal, primary customer base is central to the success of the Nectar360 Retail Media business, which now supports over 900 clients and media agencies. We are increasingly well placed to capitalise on the strong forecast growth of Retail Media in the UK through the high-returning investments we are making in our capabilities. We remain ahead of plan to deliver at least £100 million of incremental profit over the three years to March 2027.

Nectar transforming the way that customers experience value. Further ambitions for the year ahead

• Customers saved an average of £15.50 on an £80+ big weekly shop with Nectar Prices during 2025/26
• Nectar Prices has delivered more than £5.5 billion savings for customers since April 2023 launch
• Your Nectar Prices now rolled out to cover all supermarket checkouts - previously only available using Online and SmartShop
• Key driver of record Nectar digital engagement with 35 per cent increase in digitally active users²¹

Setting the standard in Retail Media and Loyalty services

• Brands want to work with fewer, higher-quality networks. We are a partner of choice with a reputation for scaled first-party data, omnichannel reach, sophisticated closed-loop measurement capabilities and leading client service
• Launched Nectar360 Pollen in the Autumn, the UK’s most advanced unified Retail Media platform, connecting audience insight, planning, activation, optimisation and measurement in a single, easy-to-use platform that facilitates omnichannel advertising in-store, onsite and offsite
• Underway with client onboarding particularly amongst our largest grocery suppliers with excellent early feedback on the intuitive and forward-thinking nature of the platform, the benefit of real-time audience building AI tools, efficiency gains from more streamlined creative compliance process and market-leading measurement tools which enable clearer ROI tracking and smarter decision making

Growing Nectar network, capabilities and Coalition

• Connected digital screen network now almost 3,000 screens across supermarkets and convenience stores. Plans to install a further 3,000 screens during the next year
• Continuing to develop our Retail Media capabilities, including exploring further opportunities within SmartShop
• Growing the Nectar Coalition, launched partnerships with Marriott Bonvoy, FareShare and Deliveroo and reward partnerships with Uber and Uber Eats

More Argos, more often

We have taken determined action to accelerate the transformation of Argos, balancing our objective to improve the customer proposition with structural cost reduction and greater efficiency in our supply chain.

We continue to invest in strategic initiatives to strengthen choice, availability and service for customers and to build a stronger digital proposition, as well as recently launching a new, more flexible, financial services offer, Argos Pay. Customer satisfaction regarding value and range²² and brand consideration have improved²³ and have helped deliver growth in customer numbers and volumes. In a highly competitive and subdued general merchandise market, volume growth was largely offset by pricing pressure and higher participation of lower ticket items.

We have established a dedicated Argos management team to help accelerate the pace of change and drive cost reduction, supporting investments in infrastructure and technology platforms for Argos.

Encouraging volume performance offset by lower average selling price

• Argos sales increased by 0.7 per cent in a highly competitive market
• Strong summer performance offset by subdued consumer spending over peak Black Friday and Christmas period
• Sales volumes up 3.7 per cent, driven by higher customer numbers and bigger baskets
• Largely offset by average selling price (ASP) down 3.0 per cent, reflecting competitive pricing pressure and higher participation of lower ticket items
• Profits broadly in line with last year. Benefit from higher volumes and operating cost savings offset by lower ASP, higher cost of driving online traffic and higher wage inflation
• Profits up year on year in first half, reflecting strong Summer seasonal volume growth, but down in peak third quarter, impacted by lower ASP

Expanding breadth and depth of ranges

• Added 13,000 new Supplier Direct Fulfilled products, with particular focus on Beauty, Toys and Electricals, driving strong sales growth
• Launch of marketplace in the year ahead will significantly expand choice for customers
• Rationalising Argos-owned private label brands from 27 to seven core brands, revitalising our own brand offer
• Re-launched Chad Valley and design-led collaborations in Habitat resulted in positive market share performances in both toys and homewares²⁴. 21 per cent improvement in sales growth in Chad Valley post-launch

Focus on efficiency, strengthening digital capabilities and added value services

• Significant cost savings delivered in stores, depots and warehouses
• Investments in AI and automation improving vehicle routing, stock management and customer targeting
• Streamlining and modernising stores - right sizing standalone stores, improving signage and technology in our stores inside Sainsbury’s and opening new collection points
• Improving Argos app to deliver personalised recommendations and app-only offers, smoother account set up and purchasing journey
• Supporting higher conversion and increased visits in a highly competitive digital market, with a 24 per cent increase in app visits year-on-year
• Launched Argos Pay, flexible credit solution, in partnership with NewDay

Save and invest to win

As we enter the third and final year of our Next Level plan, we remain on track to deliver our £1 billion cost saving target, having delivered around £680 million of cost savings since February 2024 and a total of nearly £2 billion over the past five years.

Our cost savings programme helped us sustain the strength of our competitive position in a year in which we navigated high levels of operating cost inflation, including significantly higher National Insurance costs and the introduction of the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme. We continue to invest to improve colleague safety, enhance loss prevention measures and accelerate the use of technology to drive efficiency, resilience and sustainable long term value creation.

Improving productivity through high-returning technology and automation

• SmartShop extended to another 100 stores and now available in the majority of supermarkets. Driving operational efficiency and supporting bigger basket trolley shops
• Introduced enhanced features such as Product Finder on colleague and customer handsets, supporting easier navigation, faster missions and improved in store flow
• All food products now live on machine learning forecasting platform, now a core component of availability and inventory management. Contributing to highest food availability since start of Food First strategy and reduced waste
• AI Centre of Excellence launched to drive responsible scalable and value-led adoption of AI across the business
• AI tools improving colleague productivity, customer service and supply chain optimisation and enabling colleagues to focus more time on customer‑facing and value‑adding work
• Continuing to build digital capabilities in stores, accelerating testing and adoption of new technologies for customers and colleagues

Enhancing colleague and customer safety and strengthening loss prevention across our stores

• Targeted, data led approach to strengthening safety, building operational resilience and improving loss prevention
• Completed trial of facial recognition technology with Facewatch in two stores to improve colleague safety and support identification of repeat serious offenders
• Early results show almost 50 per cent reduction in logged incidents and over 90 per cent of identified offenders not returning. Technology extended to five additional London stores to assess performance when adopted by multiple stores in the same area, with plans to introduce the technology in more stores nationwide
• Continued investment in targeted shrink measures. Self-checkout video analytics rolled out to more than 440 supermarkets, with 130 more planned by the end of June
• Enhanced shelf-edge protection safeguarding for higher risk items is now live in over 800 convenience stores, alongside selective use of front-of-store barriers

Simplifying the business and delivering sustainable cost savings

• Remaining in-store cafes, hot food, pizza and patisserie counters and scratch bakery operations closed, reallocating 170,000 sq ft of store space to improved food ranges and delivering nearly £50 million of cost savings
• First year to fully benefit from change to using third party warehousing and transport suppliers for logistics operations, delivering nearly £30 million of productivity savings
• Continued logistics automation progress, including Argos operations at Daventry warehouse
• Automated mobile robots now also live at Northampton site, simplifying ambient grocery picking process, driving efficiency and increasing capacity, with potential for rollout across the wider network

Financial Services

We are creating a simpler, more focused Financial Services model, fully integrated into our retail business. As a result, following completion of the exit from core banking, Financial Services will no longer be reported as a separate operating segment. The ongoing Financial Services contribution will be generated from Argos Care, commission income from Insurance, Travel Money, ATMs and white label banking products, alongside income from the NewDay Argos Pay partnership.

• Continue to make good progress on plan to exit core banking services and streamline Financial Services proposition:
  
  • June 2024: Announced sale of Sainsbury’s Bank personal loan, credit card and retail deposit portfolios to NatWest Group. Successful migration completed across October and November 2025
  • September 2024: Announced sale of Bank ATM business to NoteMachine. Completed May 2025
  • October 2024: Announced sales of Argos store card portfolio to NewDay and launch of new partnership to create Argos-branded digital credit proposition. Went live in February 2026. Migration of existing customers will complete in 2026/27
  • July 2025: Announced agreement with Allianz UK on car and home insurance. Completed August 2025
  • July 2025: Agreed sale of Travel Money business to Fexco Group. Completed January 2026
  • April 2026: Announced new partnership with NatWest, providing loans, savings products and new NatWest Nectar credit card. Products expected to be available in second half of 2026
  • Expect to complete final stage of bank exit and surrender banking license by July 2026
• Net proceeds from the bank exit enabled return of £300 million to shareholders, with further £100 million to be returned via incremental share buybacks in 2026/27
• Breakeven continuing operating profit outcome a £22 million improvement versus prior year, supported by cost reduction measures and effective treasury management

Sales performance (exc. VAT)

Notes
Certain statements made in this announcement are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from any expected future events or results referred to in these forward-looking statements. They appear in a number of places throughout this announcement and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations and those of our officers, directors and employees concerning, amongst other things, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the business we operate. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, regulation or accounting standard, we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

A webcast presentation and live Q&A will be held at 9:30 (BST). This will be available to view on our website at the following link: https://sainsburys-preliminary-results-announcement-2026.open-exchange.net/

A recorded copy of the webcast and Q&A call, alongside slides and a transcript of the presentation will be available at https://corporate.sainsburys.co.uk/investors/results-reports-and-presentations/ following the event.

Sainsbury’s will issue its 2026/27 First Quarter Trading Statement at 07:00 (BST) on 30 June 2026.

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