Early recruitment and the training school

Sainsbury’s recruited large numbers of school-leavers through advertisements for ‘tall well-educated youths’ and ‘keen young men’.

Some boys travelled to work in London from as far as Yorkshire, Devon and the Welsh borders, particularly during the depression of the 1920s and 1930s. All interviewees were required to sit an arithmetic test, but no other qualifications were necessary.

A training school was set up in Blackfriars in 1915, originally to train female employees in wartime. It proved so successful that other retailers began to advertise for ‘Sainsbury-trained men’.

‘Learners’ attended a fortnight’s course at the school, which included practical instruction on the art of testing eggs by candling, cutting bacon into 15 different thicknesses, balancing the scales and dividing butter from a block into half-pound packs using ‘The Sainsbury method of Wiring’. Training also included tours of the bacon stoves and the cooked meats factory, and lectures on the origins of products such as New Zealand lamb and Dutch butter.

Following training, staff spent a day at a London branch before moving into their allocated branch.  Every department had its particular skill which took months of practice to learn and progress was recorded on an ‘experience card’.

In the late 1930s, red uniform buttons (instead of the usual black) were introduced to denote fully qualified salesmen, who received £5 per week, as opposed to the 53 shillings earned by an unqualified salesman aged 21.

Sainsbury’s policy was to promote existing staff rather than recruiting from outside.  Promotion often meant moving to another branch and qualified salesman were expected to work in any Sainsbury’s store. Many exploited this requirement which by requesting transfers to seaside branches during the summer months…

View a recruitment advertisement, 1957 (PDF 1.4mb)