Our partnership with Comic Relief

Nourish the Nation is our community programme, working with our long-standing partner Comic Relief*, with the objective to fund initiatives designed to tackle food insecurity across the UK and ensure communities have improved access to balanced, nutritional, and sustainable food sources now and in the future.  Between 28th October 2024 and 31st December 2024 we are running a campaign with Comic Relief to help donate over 5 million meals to families experiencing food poverty. 

How can customers support our campaign this Christmas:  

1.  Purchasing donating products in Sainsbury’s supermarkets and online, including:

• Between 28th October and 31st December 2024, 10p will be donated to Comic Relief for all purchases of festive sandwiches marked with a Comic Relief logo in England, Scotland and Wales, while stocks last. Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).

•  Between 30th October and 24th December 2024, we will donate £200,000 to Comic Relief from the profit of sales of our GM Christmas Comic Relief donating range. Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).

•  Between 1st December and 31st December, every penny from the sales of our by Sainsbury's and Free from classic mince pies will be donated to Comic Relief up to a value of £3 million. Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).

2. Donating money to Comic Relief in Sainsbury’s stores or on Sainsbury’s groceries online.  

• Between 20th November and 24th December 2024 customers can add £2, £5, or £10 Comic Relief donations to their basket on manned checkouts, self-service checkouts, and £2 via SmartShop by scanning the participating barcodes in store. Customers can also add these donation amounts on their groceries online delivery and round up their bill or donate a chosen amount at self checkout or manned tills. In participating Sainsbury’s supermarkets, customers will be able to pick up a Comic Relief donation tag (for a value of £2, £5 or £10) scannable through SmartShop, manned tills and self-checkouts Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).

3. Donating Nectar points to Comic Relief. Customers can also donate their Nectar points to Comic Relief through the Nectar app or website. There is a minimum donation amount of 200 Nectar points which equals a donation of £1. You may donate up to a maximum of 1 million Nectar points per donation via any of the available point denominations (200, 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 points). For terms and conditions please click here 

4. Donating money to Comic Relief in Argos stores

• Argos stores – Financial donations can be made at tills in-store by adding £1, £2, £5 or £10 donations.
• Or via Argos.co.uk.

5. Donating ambient food and essential items into Front of Store donation points

In participating Sainsbury’s stores, customers can donate long-life food to support the store’s food donation partners via participating store’s front of store food donation points. To see which stores have food donation points and their food donation partners click here. See in store for details on what items to donate.

Where will the donations go? 

• All contributions will go to Comic Relief to help families experiencing food poverty. Between 28th October and 31st December, the money raised through the campaign will support brilliant organisations, like FareShare (1100051), who will use the donations to provide food to people experiencing poverty in communities across the UK. 
• £2 could pay for 10 meals for a family experiencing food insecurity this winter
• £10 could pay for 50 meals to help families struggling to make ends meet this winter
• £25 could pay for 125 meals for families experiencing food insecurity this winter.
• Sainsbury’s has donated £1m to FareShare to provide food to FareShare’s member charities and community groups, and their service users between the winter months of November 2024 – February 2025. FareShare will deliver this food at a cost of 20p per meal, via their food distribution network which operates across the UK and reaches 8000+ community groups weekly. This means that the £1m of core funding that Sainsbury’s has committed to donate this Christmas will equate to 5 million meals in total.
• Sainsbury’s has also donated £25k to Community Shop CIC (701375); a social enterprise and social supermarket chain located in areas of complex deprivation across the UK. They provide access to deeply discounted food through their Community Store enabling the 28k households within their network to create meals using the food they purchase, combined with access to support services via their Community Hub and Community Kitchen. Sainsbury’s donation of £25k will cover core funding for their work of providing food in communities of high deprivation.

Sainsbury's and Comic Relief have been partners for 25 years, raising over £174 million to support people in the UK and around the world. Nourish the Nation is Sainsbury’s programme which aims to tackle food poverty and ensuring communities have improved access to balanced, nutritional and sustainable food sources.  All financial donations (across Sainsbury’s, Argos and Nectar) will be distributed to Comic Relief. 

•               Local charity partners 

In addition to Sainsbury's support through Comic Relief to tackle food insecurity across the UK, Sainsbury’s is also working in partnership with local charity partners, who are seeing increasing pressure to help feed families facing food poverty up and down the country, by helping redistribute all donated food items in stores to each store's local charity partners. These partners range from food banks to community kitchens to homeless charities.  

For information on our local charity partners please click here. 

*We are working with Comic Relief to help tackle food poverty as part of our Nourish the Nation programme. Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, a registered charity in England and Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).