Trading Statement

Sainsbury(J) PLC
26 March 2008



26 March 2008



        Fourth Quarter Trading Statement for 12 weeks to 22 March 2008:
               Good sales growth and three-year targets achieved



Highlights

•    Total sales for fourth quarter up 6.7 per cent (5.1 per cent excluding 
     fuel) (1)

•    Like-for-like sales for fourth quarter up 6.0 per cent (4.1 per cent
     excluding fuel) (1)

•    13 consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth

•    Sales targets achieved: £2.7bn of sales growth delivered against £2.5bn
     target



Justin King, chief executive, said: 'We've delivered another good performance in
the final quarter of the year with like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, up 4.1
per cent.  Full year like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, grew by 3.9 per cent
continuing our momentum of sales growth over three years.  As announced in
January 2008, we achieved our Making Sainsbury's Great Again (MSGA) sales growth
target early in this quarter, three months ahead of plan.  We've continued to
grow and have now delivered £2.7 billion of sales growth since March 2005. This
is an outstanding success and I would like to thank and congratulate all 150,000
Sainsbury's colleagues for the part they played in achieving this.



'The fourth quarter contained a number of seasonal events as well as our own
initiatives and we were pleased with our operational performance which helped us
deliver good growth during these periods. We again delivered strong customer
service and product availability as a result of the improvements we've made to
our operation over the past three years.



'We are passionate about the quality and value of our food and provide a broad
offer to over 16.5 million customers a week, whatever their household budget.
Consumers are facing real increases in their cost of living.  Today we have
launched our 'Feed your family for a fiver' campaign which provides customers
with a range of healthy, fresh and tasty meal ideas for four people for £5 or
under.  During the quarter we supported the Fairtrade fortnight with specific
promotions in all of our stores.  Our range of Fairtrade products continues to
grow, and we've more than doubled our Fairtrade sales over the last 12 months.



'We also continue to play a very active role in the communities in which we
operate. In February we launched our fourth Sainsbury's Active Kids programme,
where vouchers are collected against spend in store and then exchanged for an
increasingly wide range of rewards, such as donating sports equipment to schools
in developing countries.  Since 2005 we have donated £52 million of sports and
cooking equipment to schools, nurseries, scout and guide groups.  We were also
proud to sponsor the Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile on March 16 as part of our
longstanding relationship with Comic Relief.  Our colleagues and customers
helped us contribute over £1.5 million to this charity.



'We continue to see strong growth from non-food sales following the investment
we've made in developing the range, establishing the supporting infrastructure
and increasing the space dedicated to this part of our offer.  Going forward,
non-food has significant growth potential as we continue to implement our plans.



'During the quarter we opened a new store in Alnwick, extended our store at
Bradford on Avon and refurbished a further 13 supermarkets.  Within the
convenience estate we opened eight new stores.  We have identified 36 former
Bells and Jackson's stores unsuitable for conversion to the Sainsbury's fascia
and a sale process has commenced.  This is expected to be completed early in
2008/09.



'Today we have also announced the investment of £273 million to create a £1.2
billion property Joint Venture ('JV') with British Land. This allows Sainsbury's
shareholders to share in the significant value creation arising from the
development opportunities across 38 Sainsbury's stores owned by the JV. (2)



'The achievements we've made during our MSGA plan are significant and I am
delighted with our progress.  The market remains competitive but, as we enter
our fourth year of growth, the improvements we have made to date position us
well to meet the demands of what continues to be a challenging environment.'



Enquiries:

Investor Relations                   Media
Elliot Jordan                        Pip Wood
[phone]                 [phone]


Notes

(1)      Quarter four and full year like-for-like and total sales growth have
been Easter adjusted for comparative purposes.  2007/08 included two Good Friday
trading weeks and one Easter Monday trading week.  2006/07 included one Good
Friday trading week and one Easter Monday trading week.  2008/09 will include
one Easter Monday trading week only.

(2)     A separate announcement has been made today with the details of the
Joint Venture transaction.  British Land has also made an announcement today.

(3)     Certain statements made in this announcement are forward looking
statements.  Such statements are based on current expectations and are subject
to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ
materially from any expected future events or results referred to in these
forward looking statements.  Unless otherwise required by applicable law,
regulation or accounting standard, we do not undertake any obligation to update
or revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future developments or otherwise.

(4)    A conference call will take place at 8:45am GMT.  To listen to the audio
webcast we recommend that you register in advance.  To do so please visit
www.j-sainsbury.co.uk prior to the event and follow the on-screen instructions.
To view the transcript of the conference call, go to www.j-sainsbury.co.uk on 28
March 2008.

(5)    Sainsbury's will announce its preliminary results for the 52 weeks ending
22 March 2008 on 14 May 2008.

(6)    Sales results for the year (Easter adjusted):

2007/08                                    Q1         Q2         H1         Q3         Q4         H2        FY*
Sales growth including fuel (%)
Total                                     5.7        3.8        4.7        5.9        6.7        6.3        5.5
Lfl                                       4.4        2.6        3.3        5.1        6.0        5.5        4.4

Sales growth excluding fuel (%)
Total                                     6.7        4.7        5.7        4.7        5.1        4.9        5.3
Lfl                                       5.1        3.1        4.0        3.7        4.1        3.9        3.9

*  Total statutory sales growth for the full year is 5.8 per cent including fuel
(5.7 per cent excluding fuel).



(7)     Store investment for the year:
2007/08                                    Q1          Q2          Q3          Q4       Total
Supermarkets
New                                         1           2          12           1          16
Closed                                    (2)           -           -           -         (2)
Extensions                                  1           8           5           1          15
Refurbishments                              5          15          17          15          52

Convenience
New                                         4           7           8           8          27
Closed                                    (2)         (4)           -           -         (6)
Extensions                                  -           1           -           -           1
Refurbishments                              5           7           -           3          15






                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange