At Sainsbury's, we want to be a truly inclusive retailer where people love to work and shop. October is always an important month to celebrate Black culture, recognise the contributions Black people have made to society and to make sure we all use Black History Month as an opportunity to continue learning year on year.

Our progress

Over the last few years, we’ve set a number of commitments and targets to support our colleagues and communities. We are committed to delivering these and think it’s important to reflect on some of the progress we’ve made so far:

• Increasing Black representation in our company at a senior leader level is a major priority for us. We are not at our goal yet and still have work to do moving forward.
• Our ethnically diverse development programme is now in its fifth year, with over 250 ethnically diverse leaders being supported with their growth and development within the business.
• To support Black people in our communities, we have donated over £1 million to a range of charities providing everything from education resources to culturally appropriate food through FareShare.
• Black History Month continues to be an important moment for us to mark as a business. This year, Black History Month has been led by our internal colleague channel network, aiming to inspire and educate colleagues across the business. Each week focused on different topics, from celebrating food, discussing privilege, racism and allyship - both online and in-person events and sessions have taken place.

Thrive with Sainsbury’s

This year, through ‘Thrive with Sainsbury’s’ we’ve been investing in smaller Black founder-led start-up businesses with a £1 million commitment to support their transition to supermarket shelves. Nine applicants have received funding and as well as 1:1 support and group learning, with up to five new brands due to land in Sainsbury’ stores by the end of the programme. The Thrive founders have been real pioneers in their fields, here’s more about their inspiring stories:

1. House of Cinn – David Martos Ruiz and Itse Onuwaje created House of Cinn to give back to the community and launched their unique bakery that specialises in tasty cinnamon rolls. 65% of profits are reinvested into supporting those affected by homelessness and poverty.
2. Mirror Margarita - Created by spirits expert Deano Moncrieffe, who was inspired to create a cocktail that was familiar in both name and taste but strikingly different in appearance, Mirror Margarita shot to fame and was recently named UK Specialist Bar of the Year.
3. Riddles Ice Tea - Founded in London by a chemist, Charlie, Riddles IceTea specialises in creating delicious Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Ice Teas. It is vegan, gluten free, low calorie and low sugar.
4. Nuttyogoo - Nuttyogoo is a Kent based family-owned small business that manufactures a unique organic Peanut Crackers and Cold Pressed Peanut Oil.
5. YumChop - Yumchop is a range of frozen home-style cooked ready meals. It is introducing African style meals and flavours into the mainstream through creating a fusion with various meals from other cultures, with no added preservatives.
6. Vibez Drinks - Vibez Drinks is the UK's first flavoured Hibiscus Water that contains zero sugar and less than 14 calories per can. The Vibez Drinks recipe was born in the Patterson’s kitchen, traditionally made as a festive drink and inspired by flavours from their Jamaican roots.
7. Raise Snacks - Raise Snacks provide you with a natural and delicious hit of nutrients through nuts and seeds. For every pouch you buy, you help to feed a child at risk of hunger in the UK.
8. Saida Mia – Saida found it difficult to find Somalian-style, free-from products and decided to make her own sauces. Her sauces are delicious, nutritious, with no refined sugar, artificial flavours or colours, additives or preservatives, gluten or allergens.
9. Gretel & Belle – Gretel & Belle launched a range of the UK’s first and only horchata drinks, a creamy and refreshing plant-based beverage made from tiger nuts. It exists to challenge the status quo by innovating forgotten, unique food and beverages with mass appeal.

Helping charities supporting Black communities

To drive lasting change within Black communities, Sainsbury’s has donated over £1 million across several charities, businesses and social enterprises that support the Black community. Sainsbury’s has made multiple donations over the past year to organisations tackling racism, social mobility, food insecurity and supporting Black education and businesses. Organisations we’ve supported include:

• Show Racism the Red Card - Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC) is the UK’s leading anti-racism educational charity. Our support will help them to provide new educational resources to 30,892 schools across England, Scotland and Wales.
• AddPsalt - AddPsalt work with a team of world class leaders and experts in the retail space, skilled in helping people fulfil their potential and bring about change and growth. Through this fund we will help to increase the number of cohorts allowing more Black-owned suppliers and entrepreneurs to receive support.
• Ubele - We support the growth and scale up of the Rootz into Food Growing project which promotes food justice and training a new generation of Black/ethnically diverse commercial growers.
• Impetus - Impetus work with charities to make them stronger, delivering better results each year to more disadvantaged young people. We help support Black and ethnic minority young people find and keep jobs to lift them out of poverty.
• The Black Curriculum - The Black Curriculum believe that they can facilitate social change. We support working with young people to discuss and explore black history.
• FareShare - With our donation, FareShare have provided 9,462 charity partners with equivalent of 128.3 million meals, helping them support over 1 million people across the UK.
• Sickle Cell Society - The Sickle Cell Society is the only national charity in the UK that supports and represents people affected by a sickle cell disorder to improve their overall quality of life.

Celebrating with Food

With the cost of living at the front of customers’ minds, we recently launched Feed your family for a fiver, a campaign which encourages colleagues and customers to cook budget-friendly meals at home. Why not check out our Jollof-style rice recipe, nominated by Moji Forde, Senior Project Manager at Sainsbury’s. The recipe is just 42p per serving and can feed four people! You can find our Jamaican style curry chicken and other African and Carribean recipes that cost less than £5 here.