Expanding non-food offer continues to perform well as supermarket chain posts pre-tax profit increase of 57.3% for the year to March 2010.
Sainsbury's non-food offer is growing at three times the rate of food, with a pre-tax operating profit of £19m for the year to March 20, 2010. The news comes as the supermarket chain, which stocks a wide range of home and garden products, releases its preliminary results for the 52-week period.

Sainsbury's chairman David Tyler said: "The board is pleased with the performance of Sainsbury's over the last year. We have delivered sales growth ahead of the market and good profit growth with underlying earnings per share up over 12%. Our progress in achieving our strategic objectives has been strong, particularly on growing space and developing our complementary non-food offer."

Total sales for the supermarket, including VAT and fuel, were up 5.1% to £21,421m. Excluding fuel, sales were up 6.7%, with a like-for-like increase of 4.3%. Pre-tax profit saw a 57.3% increase to £733m, while a proposed full-year dividend of 14.2p is up 7.6% on the previous year.

Sainsbury's is also sharing a bonus of more than £80m among its 127,00 employees.

Meanwhile, 828-strong chain, whose non-food offer includes cookware, kitchen appliances, furniture, DIY, bathroom, outdoor living and pet care, looks set to increase its store space by a further 2.5m sq ft by March next year.

Discussing the 15% increase in gross new space, Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King said: "Whilst we expect that the environment will remain challenging and consumer spending will be under pressure, we believe our strong space growth plans, supporting our expanding food, complementary non-food and convenience store businesses...will enable us to make further good progress."