Christmas price list, 1916
© Sainsbury Archive, Museum of London Docklands. ID no. SA_MARK_ADV_3_3_6_1_1.2
A wartime Christmas
100 years ago you might have dined on a Christmas meal of freshly-shot wild game, like rabbit or pheasants, or now less fashionable dishes like a glazed ox tongue. Of course, in 1916 the First World War was raging and Britain lived under wartime austerity. The
outbreak of war in 1914 had led to increasing prices and product scarcity. The public were encouraged to consume less and were
warned against hoarding goods. Sainsbury’s were able to offer a relatively wide
range of products throughout the war due to their emphasis on local farms and
their in-house preparation of cooked meats at their Blackfriars factory in
London.
Imported goods were amongst the hardest to source, particularly
following the U-boat crisis in 1917, when the enemy sunk around a quarter of the
merchant ships heading to Britain with imported foodstuffs. Rationing did not begin nationally until 1917, when the buying of sugar was restricted, and rationing of butter, margarine and meat followed in 1918. Up until rationing came into force,
retailers like Sainsbury’s were expected to allocate goods in short supply by
themselves. Queueing outside stores in anticipation of deliveries became a
normal occurrence. Staff even adopted code word ‘back slang’ to distract
customers during stock arrivals such as ‘nocab’ for bacon and ‘ragus’ for
sugar. However, these adverts promise Sainsbury's will make a special effort to have favourite foods in stock for Christmas.