Sainsbury's issues update amid Aldi price guarantee as '4,000 products reduced'

Britain's second-largest supermarket Sainsbury's has posted massive profits after multiple years of eye-watering food inflation and strong competition from bargain competitor Aldi.

Just like the Tesco Clubcard, Sainsbury's has grown its loyalty card offering to draw more shoppers through the doors, while putting more than £220 million into lowering prices across their stores - with the supermarket's Aldi Price Match keeping the cost of around 500 common branded and own-brand products low for consumers.

Sainsbury's Nectar Card schemes are part of the reason for its year of growth, with more than 7,000 products across their stores reduced in cost. Because of this, the supermarket has seen its grocery sales boom amid the Price Match war, with a 9.4 per cent increase in sales in 12 months.

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The profit boom for the supermarket comes just months after the chief executive of Sainsbury's announced a wide-ranging cost-cutting exercise, which saw 1,500 jobs cut across the chain's call centres, warehouses, and stores - reducing costs by around £1 billion.

Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury’s, said moves to focus on food and keep prices affordable were “winning us customers from all our key competitors”.

He said: “We said we’d put food back at the heart of Sainsbury’s and that’s what we’ve done. We know it’s still tough out there for so many households and we’re doing all we can to save money right across our business to keep prices low – we have reduced 4,000 products over the last year alone.”

Mr Roberts said food price inflation had fallen to just over 3 per cent now and forecast it would continue stabilising and remain in low