Sainsbury’s Historical Archives host an education area for anyone looking at local history near a Sainsbury’s branch.
There is a short online audiobook telling the story of a typical day in the life of a Sainsbury’s delivery boy in 1912.
The history of the Frozen food section is a fascinating account of trying to keep cold foods, like meat, fresh on display to the development of chiller cabinets and freezers.
The Christmas Lunch section would be a really good one to show to children and ask if they can spot a difference in the packaging! There is absolutely no sign of plastic anywhere. Ask how the later 60s, early 70s Christmas dinner compare with what they are used to!
Adding collectible cards to packets of tea created a very good selling point and if children were collecting the cards then the parents would buy the brand. Sainsburys started using cards in their tea, they had six fairy tales stories told in six cards each. To collect the whole set of 36 would have been a lot of packets of tea, especially when one thinks about all of the duplicates that would have been part of the project. Apart from the fairy stories, there were sets of British Birds and Foreign Birds. They were all beautifully painted and very inspiring to collect.
There are two sections on the wars: World War One and World War Two, the first showing a butter ration card, and the WW2 one showing lots more information about rationing and a ration card.
Sainsbury’s Historical Archives provides a fascinating set of historical material and the timeline shows the whole history of the store from its earliest beginnings to 2019. passing straight through two major wars and many historical events.
