By James Davey<\/p>\n
LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) – British supermarket group Sainsbury\u2019s warned on Thursday that uncertainty around how the Iran war will affect consumers is clouding \u200cits outlook and could drag profits lower this year, echoing concerns voiced by \u200cmarket leader Tesco.<\/p>\n
Sainsbury’s, which has a 15.6% share of the UK grocery market, said the conflict in the \u200bMiddle East will impact both its customers and its business.<\/p>\n
“The duration and extent of these impacts is very uncertain and this is reflected in our profit guidance,” it said, forecasting total underlying operating profit of between 975 million pounds and 1.075 billion pounds ($1.32-$1.45 billion) for its \u200c2026\/27 year.<\/p>\n
GENERAL MERCHANDISE MARKET IS \u2060SUBDUED<\/p>\n
Sainsbury’s made retail underlying profit of 1.025 billion pounds in the year to February 28 2026, down 1.1% on 2024\/25 but in line \u2060with guidance.<\/p>\n
“We have made a positive start to the new financial year, with grocery volume growth ahead of the market. Argos trading continues to reflect a subdued general merchandise market,” it said, \u200badding \u200bit expected to continue to outperform the grocery \u200bmarket.<\/p>\n
About one quarter of Sainsbury’s sales \u200care non-food, coming from its Argos general merchandise business, making it more exposed than Tesco to any war-related slowdown in discretionary spending.<\/p>\n
British consumers are gloomier about the economy than at any time since records began in 1978, according to a survey published on Wednesday that showed the Iran war and soaring oil prices are taking a heavy toll on \u200cBritish households.<\/p>\n
UK food inflation rose to 3.7% in March, \u200baccording to official data. Trade body the Food \u200band Drink Federation has warned food prices \u200bwill be rising by almost 10% by December. Last week, Tesco \u200csaid it did not recognise that number, \u200bas it warned its \u200bprofit could fall this year as a result of the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Sainsbury’s like-for-like sales rose 3.1% in the fourth quarter of its 2025\/26 year, having been up \u200b3.4% in the third \u200cquarter.<\/p>\n
Full year total retail sales, excluding VAT and fuel, rose 4.3% to 30 \u200bbillion pounds.<\/p>\n
Shares in Sainsbury’s have increased 39% over the last year.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.7412 pounds)<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby James Davey; editing by Sarah Young)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By James Davey LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) – British supermarket group Sainsbury\u2019s warned on Thursday that uncertainty around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28740,34,196,25991,24563],"class_list":{"0":"post-79439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-british-consumers","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-iran-war","11":"tag-sainsburys","12":"tag-tesco"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116452727393320103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}