Sainsbury's are returning as principal sponsors of LEAF Open Farm Sunday, the farming industry's annual open day. This year held on the 9th June, the day is a fantastic chance for members of the public, customers and colleagues alike to discover real farming first-hand and see for themselves how their food is produced. The day is a great way for farmers to showcase what they deliver and show the public why supporting British farming matters.
Last year, the Sainsbury’s agriculture team supported and attended farms across the UK in our pork, dairy, fresh produce, lamb, chicken and combinable crops supply chains. This year, we're hoping to increase our reach to a greater number of visitors, and we need your help to get there! Whether it's a big event for the local community, a farm walk for friends and family or anything in-between, we're challenging our suppliers, farmers and growers to open their farm gates to the public on 9th June and champion all of the fantastic work done by the British food and farming industry.
For more information about LEAF Open Farm Sunday, why not visit their website, or sign up here to host your own event.
Has a creative approach to learning and development improved your company’s performance? Don't miss this chance to show how investment in your people has had tangible results for your business.
The prestigious IGD John Sainsbury Learning & Development Award is a fantastic opportunity for suppliers to be recognised for leading the way in our sector as investors in people.
The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) is a research and training charity that helps the food and grocery industry deliver a secure and sustainable future. The annual IGD Industry Awards showcases some of the most exciting new thinking and developments, as well as people and businesses across the food supply chain.
Sainsbury's has sponsored the Learning & Development Award for over 25 years to recognise companies, large or small, that have increased their business's performance by taking creative and innovative approaches to learning and development. The award is designed to identify initiatives that are truly out of the ordinary and celebrate companies that have gained genuine and demonstrable business results from people development, sustained learning and continuing performance improvement.
Why not submit your initiative for the 2019 awards and showcase how investing in learning and development has transformed your business?
The closing date for this year is the 31st of May 2019 with the awards ceremony being held on the 7th of November.
What the judges are looking for:
- An initiative that is truly extraordinary
- A clear impact on behaviour and results
- Creativity and innovation
- Engagement and support from senior business leaders
- Strategic alignment of the initiative
Click here to enter. (Closing date for entries is 31st of May 2019).
Consumer concern over plastics waste and its effects on the environment is growing, thanks to the efforts of Sir David Attenborough and numerous experts and organisations who focus their efforts on addressing this pressing global issue.
Our vision is a world where plastic is valued and doesn't pollute the environment. To help achieve this, we want to ensure we're focussing our own efforts where we can make the biggest impact. But we can't achieve the kinds of impacts we believe are necessary alone. That's why we've signed up to The UK Plastics Pact, led by WRAP U.K. - a collaborative effort between some of the biggest names across the industry. The Plastics Pact isn’t just about consumer packaging, it encompasses all packaging, including commercial and industrial sources - and it covers all current formats of plastic packaging.
The issue of plastics waste is multi-factorial and requires the involvement of every part of our industry and the support of government to address it effectively. We're working on targets that we believe best support the delivery of the goals of the pact and will be outlining these in detail in the next few months.
On the 10th of May, we brought together almost 90 colleagues from Argos, Sainsbury's and Sainsbury's Bank to help shape the future of Sainsbury's Community Programme.
The event, dubbed the 'Community Swarm', was a full day of talks, brainstorming sessions and idea generation and sharing to define how we can collectively shape the community programme, to make it easy for both colleagues and customers to support local charities and community groups.
The day was split into three parts;
- An inspiring presentation on Sainsbury’s commitment to the community from Helen Milford, Judith Batchelar, Rebecca Reilly and Simon Roberts
- Breakout sessions, where attendees discussed and shared ideas around Sainsbury’s in the community
- A final summary, where everyone came together to summarise the discussions in the breakout session
During the breakout sessions, colleagues from across the business, including Store Support Centres, Depots, Stores, Argos, Nectar and Sainsbury’s Bank, were brought together to share their unique insights into how the business operates, and the opportunities we each have to help build the community programme.
The discussions centred around these key aims:
- Colleague volunteering opportunities in local communities, and how best the community programme can support this
- How best store space can be used to the advantage of the community
- How can we shape the community programme, to make it easy for both colleagues and customers to support local charities and community groups
- Exploring using technology to advance our programmes
‘It was great to have so many different areas of the business brain storm one really key strategy that makes such a difference to our colleagues and customers. The openness of Sainsbury’s as a company and its ability to listen is a key driver in its success, and I believe yesterday’s swarm event epitomizes this’.
Debbie Guttridge, Store manager at Sainsbury’s Grantham
Next Steps:
Attendees were so enthusiastic and engaged throughout the day, and were excited about the opportunity to help shape our programme and enthusiasm was such that we are looking to continue the programme development with the support of those in attendance.
Our colleagues play an essential role in connecting with customers and helping our business run smoothly. We want to deliver on our commitment to create a diverse workplace full of highly dedicated colleagues.
The Proud@Sainsbury's group acts as a link between business and colleague. The group has 300 subscribed members and 1,000 yammer members supporting us to help make positive changes for Sainsbury’s LGBTA community and ensure that people feel able to be themselves at work. It's well documented that feeling able to be your true self at work leads to better performance, benefiting the business as a whole, as well ensuring good colleague attraction at retention. Last year, Sainsbury's attended 35 Pride events, involving over 2,000 colleagues. The Proud@Sainsbury's Group also works with local communities - donating over £15,000 to local community projects in the last 3 years in Leeds alone.
The business has also recently supported LGBT history month, World Aids Day and sponsored a charitable event called Respect the Love in partnership with Accenture, and our Christmas advertising was also recognised in the industry as being inclusive to LGBT communities, being nominated at the British LGBT Awards and the Pink News Awards in 2017.
Now, as a business, we want to show that we are driving change and instil this message with our customers. In the last year we have moved from 233rd place in the Stonewall Index to 117th place – the 4th highest ranking retailer in the index. We expect this upward trend to continue to rise as we focus further efforts to improve support for LGBT colleagues this year.
If you'd like to learn more about our Proud@Sainsbury's journey and how to build the benefits for your colleagues and business, contact working.together@sainsburys.co.uk.