Sainsbury’s and Compass Group-owned One Retail are to expand their Taste Café eat-in concept to over 30 supermarkets across the UK.
The pair originally opened Taste Cafés in two Sainsbury’s stores earlier this year in Carlisle and King’s Lynn Hardwick. A further six sites have been opened over the past month in Penzance, Southampton Portswood, Morecambe, Wrexham, Bishop Auckland and Wakefield Marsh Way. The newest site opens in Sainsbury’s Blackhall, Edinburgh today (30 September).
The Taste Cafés serve drinks from Costa Coffee, alongside a food menu featuring a full traditional breakfast and veggie breakfast, a selection of jacket potatoes and soups, smashed avocado sourdough with chilli and lime, and mozzarella pizzettes.
A ‘Taste for Tots’ menu is available for children, which includes options such as sausages and mash, ‘funtime fruits’, and poached eggs and soldiers.
The new Taste Cafés set to open in the coming weeks will be located in Sainsbury’s stores in Hankridge Farm, the Isle of Wight, Newbury, West Green, Pontypridd, Barnstaple and Waterlooville.
“We know many of our customers enjoy having somewhere to stop for a drink, snack or sit-down lunch while they’re shopping with us,” said Sainsbury’s head of food-to-go and partnerships Richard Murrell. “These Taste Cafés are providing just that, in new locations, with a comfortable café experience and a fantastic menu that is bespoke to Sainsbury’s.
“Working with third-party providers to open cafés that complement what we already offer customers in our supermarkets means we can focus our energy on what we do best in our core business.”
He added: “We’re excited to be collaborating with One Retail, a caterer that we know has the expertise to run great cafés in our stores – and we hope to build on the success that others such as Starbucks and Costa continue to bring to Sainsbury’s stores.”
In January 2025, Sainsbury’s rolled out a series of changes as part of its ’Next Level’ strategy to shave £1bn in costs from the business. Part of this saw the supermarket giant closing it’s 61 remaining company-run in-store cafés, finishing a rollback that started in 2022. The company claimed that the cafés were not used by the “majority” of its most loyal shoppers, who prefer its third-party cafés and food halls, which it has continued to roll out.
In April, Sainsbury’s reached a “major milestone” in its partnership with Costa Coffee, with the opening of its 50th supermarket café, which runs as a separate concept to its Taste Cafés with One Retail.
At the time, Sainsbury’s and Costa unveiled plans to open at least another 14 in-store cafés in 2026. Since first collaborating in 2024, the partnership has created more than 400 jobs in local communities. It now represents a combined investment of around £16m.
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