Sainsbury’s has opened applications for its Future Brands programme, running two category-specific recruitment campaigns focused on mindful drinking and ‘feel-good convenience’ for the first time.
The 12-month scheme, which identifies and supports high-potential challenger brands, provides access to the retailer’s expertise and a range of benefits including preferential payment terms, in-store PoS, discounted Nectar360 rates, and a Sainsbury’s mentor.
The mindful drinking and feel-good convenience categories have been chosen to reflect long-term customer trends where challenger brands can “play an important role in bringing fresh thinking, exciting innovation and broader choice to fast-evolving categories”, Sainsbury’s said.
Within mindful drinking, Sainsbury’s is looking for challenger brands that support customer needs and trends across alcohol moderation, hydration, gut health, wellbeing, focus and relaxation.
Under the feel-good convenience category, the grocer is looking for brands bringing new ideas to chilled snacking and picnic occasions and to chilled and frozen ready meals.
Brands can apply to the category-specific briefs via RangeMe by Sunday 11 October. Shortlisted brands will then be invited to pitch to buyers before final listing decisions are made.
“Future Brands is about finding brilliant challenger brands with the potential to bring something genuinely new and innovative to our customers,” said Sainsbury’s director of product and innovation James Campbell.
“By focusing this round of recruitment on mindful drinking and feel-good convenience, we’re targeting two areas where we know customers are looking for more choice, better solutions and products that fit the way they live today. We’re proud to work with the next generation of food and drink innovators and help them scale with Sainsbury’s.”
It comes as Sainsbury’s has welcomed the first cohort of FutureMaker graduates, marking the launch of its new flagship graduate programme.
The two-year programme offers 50 graduates a development pathway with three rotations across the business, including data and analytics, digital and AI, commercial acumen, customer understanding and transformation.
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