Sainsbury's Hempstead Valley investment transforms fashion and beauty areas

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 4, 2021

Sainsbury’s has opened the doors to a revamp of one of its key stores with the relaunched Hempstead Valley supermarket in Kent showcasing its latest product offer and format design. 

After eight months of redevelopment works, the 62,000 sq ft store has “been transformed into a next generation state-of-the-art” location. Along with a number of other enhancements from the multi-million pound investment works, the retailer said it has transformed the beauty department and clothing & home section. 

That comes as such categories becomes increasingly important to the company that’s one of the biggest clothing retailers in the UK via its Tu Clothing label. In its largest stores, the space dedicated to fashion is unusually generous compared to many supermarkets.

Sainsbury’s has operated from the Hempstead Valley site for over 40 years, with this renewal “representing one of its largest single store investments in around 20 years”.

The overall improvement works have been designed to “provide a customer-first experience, with the local community now enjoying a brighter, fresher superstore with enhanced product and service offering”.

The supermarket is home to the first Sainsbury’s Fresh Food Market, a new-look café, dedicated on-the-go hub with snacking, coffee machine, fresh juicer and sushi bar, plus its Argos store-in-store offer. That may not be directly relevant to the fashion selection there, but anything that encourages more footfall to the location should boost Tu sales and beauty sales in-store.