Sainsbury's to close 61 in-store cafes

Sainsbury’s is to close its remaining 61 in-store cafes and cut over 3,000 staff jobs in a bid to reduce costs.

The supermarket giant said it had made the “difficult decision” to “simplify the business”.

It is also proposing to close its patisserie, hot food and pizza counters and sell their most popular items in its aisles instead.

Sainsbury’s said most of its shoppers “do not use the cafés regularly” and its food halls run by specialist partners were “becoming more and more popular”.

It comes after the supermarket closed 200 in-store cafes in 2022 and expanded its partnership with Boparan Restaurant Group to open food halls in its stores with brands including Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Caffè Carluccio’s (pictured) and Slim Chickens.

Boparan now operates 21 Restaurant Hub sites at Sainsbury’s stores nationwide.

The closures come after Sainsbury’s reported strong Christmas trading and said it expected annual profits to surpass £1b.

But this month chief executive Simon Roberts said measures announced in the budget would force the business to make “tough choices” with the rise in employer’s national insurance contributions set to cost the supermarket £140m from April.

Sainsbury’s is aiming to find cost savings of £1b and is aiming to cut around 20% of its senior management roles over the next few months.

Roberts said: “The decisions we are announcing today are essential to ensure we continue to drive forward our momentum but have also meant some difficult choices impacting our dedicated colleagues in a number of parts of our business. We’ll be doing everything we can to support anyone impacted by today’s announcements.”

Sainsbury’s employs 148,000 people across almost 600 supermarkets and over 800 convenience stores.