Sainsbury’s today announced that it is to recruit 150 people to support its growing non-food operation. The jobs will be based at Sainsbury’s Coventry site and include a wide variety of roles, such as product design, buying and merchandising.
In August 2007, Sainsbury’s announced plans to create a non-food centre of excellence by relocating its general merchandise operation to Coventry to join the TU clothing team.
The recruitment drive forms part of Sainsbury’s three year business strategy to grow sales by £3.5 billion – a third of which will come from non-food and will account for half of new space in-store.
Non-food growth continues to run at over twice the rate of food growth with strong incremental growth from both new space and extensions.
Richard Jones, Sainsbury’s head of general merchandise said:”Recruiting 150 people to our non-food team shows how important non-food growth is to our business – we have ambitious plans and we have put into place the necessary capabilities and infrastructure to ensure that we can deliver.
“Coventry is an ideal location for our team – the city offers fantastic transport links to the whole of the UK and our building is ideal for all our business needs.”
Last year Sainsbury’s announced plans to increase its sales area by over 10% to 19 million square feet. This new space will be split equally across grocery and non-food ranges. By March 2010, Sainsbury’s will have 60 stores* with more than 15,000 square foot of non-food.
Sainsbury’s specialist non-food team has been gradually developed over the last three years and follows a period of strong sales growth in non-food at Sainsbury’s. Investment has been made across IT systems and the supply chain, and now Sainsbury’s focus is on recruiting more skilled and experienced colleagues to deliver ambitious sales targets set for the next three years.
TU, Sainsbury’s exclusive clothing brand launched in September 2004, continues to be a star performer and is now the eleventh largest UK clothing retailer by volume and is on track to achieve sales in excess of £300 million this year in 262 stores.
The first general merchandise range to be fully designed from the Coventry site is Autumn Winter 08.
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