Sainsbury’s Simon Roberts is an effective CEO – but a £5m pay package is indefensible

Bumper pay is a bad look at a time when 14 per cent of Britons are skipping meals, writes James Moore

Packages such as this risk bringing business into disrepute (PA)

A reward for delivering profiteering profits,” is how Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham described Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Roberts’s bumper £5m package, revealed in its annual report.

His pay represented a 33 per cent rise on the £3.6m he received the previous year. Spin doctors don’t get a lot of sympathy but you have to feel for whoever was tasked with justifying this in the midst of a generational cost of living crisis. It’s the definition of “impossible job”. Easier for the King’s Arms Sunday league first 11 to get a result against Manchester City in a Champions League warm-up than to secure a favourable response to that number. But let’s don the boots and have a go...

Graham delivered a fine soundbite but is her description fair? Probably not. The supermarkets have found themselves under pressure lately and no wonder with food prices the way they are. But, as this column has previously discussed, the sector’s margins are slim and considerably lower than they were before Aldi and Lidl reached critical mass. The grocery market is very competitive.