Sainsbury’s have increased the time non-food suppliers have to wait for their money from one month to two and a half months and portrayed themselves as greedy and exploitative. The supermarket group claims that the 75 day wait is the “industry standard”.

Their claim has been described as “utter fabrication” by the Forum of Private Business which has admitted Sainsbury’s into its late-payment Hall of Shame, to join Dell, Argos and Carlsberg, who have also unethically increased payment times to suppliers who have already supplied them with goods.

Ethics at Sainsbury’s were also called into question a few months ago when one of their food buyers was jailed for four years for taking £2.5 million in bribes. (Marketing Matters, July/August 2012, CORRUPTION AT SAINSBURY’S)