The supermarket boss insists that he only wants to overtake Asda – but the Grand Prix rumours won’t go away

As the horsemeat scandal reached its peak in February, the bosses of Britain’s biggest supermarkets and suppliers were summoned to Whitehall to explain themselves.

Packed into a Defra meeting room on a Saturday morning, the shopkeepers were given an almighty dressing down and ordered to take responsibility for one of the biggest food adulteration revelations of recent years.

Among them was Justin King, at 51, and after nearly a decade at the helm of Sainsbury’s, regarded as the elder statesman of the grocery business. He was, he says, determined not to take the criticism lying down. He accused government officials of failing to understand the industry, and even threatened to call on the prime minister to demand a ceasefire.

Three months on, with horsemeat found in beefburgers, bolognese sauces, lasagnes and corned beef – but not in any Sainsbury’s products – King still recalls the behaviour of those running the country with exasperation.

He said: “That moment was when politics and business were at their most tense, because politicians felt they had to be saying something. The reason no one was saying anything was because we were doing the responsible, trustworthy thing, which is understanding the issue before we shouted about it, while the dynamic of politics is the opposite.

“In business, we understand it and then we talk about it, while in politics they talk about it and at some later date work out whether their understanding fits with what they said about it some weeks before.”

It was perhaps surprising that King wanted to take such an active role in tackling the scandal on behalf of the industry, given that his own supermarket group had come through unscathed while bitter rivals Tesco and Asda were caught out.

But the new old man of retail, having worked for PepsiCo, Marks & Spencer and Asda before his nine years at Sainsbury’s, says he has seen far worse and that the public is not quite as worried about horsemeat as might be expected.

“We’ve had foot and mouth, bird flu and BSE, all of which were examples where the supply chain was challenged, so this is nothing new. It’s all about trust and acting in a trustworthy way.

“People are pretty realistic. If you Google horsemeat, [a lot of the hits] are horsemeat jokes. So there was an immediate juxtaposition in the consumers’ minds that it was serious but they got a lot of enjoyment from it, too.”

However, King is keen to stress that businesses must stop feeling sorry for themselves and realise that the customers are victims too.

“I don’t think it is fair enough for retailers affected to say they were victims. I had a very simple view – which is that I’m on the same side of the table as the customer.

“The second you say you’re a victim in this situation, even when you are, you put yourself on the wrong side of the table. The real victims are the consumers, who have paid their hard-earned cash.”

This week, the City will see that Sainsbury’s has been largely unaffected by the scandal. Full-year results released on Wednesday will show sales up 4.6% to around £25.6bn, with underlying pre-tax profits expected to be up 5% to £748m.

The focus may now have moved away from horsemeat, but City investors will be keen to learn more about King’s future. He has been touted as the next boss of Formula One, when Bernie Ecclestone hands over the keys to the world’s most glamorous sporting franchise.

Last weekend that speculation reached a new pitch after the supermarket confirmed that headhunters Egon Zehnder had been retained to advise on King’s successor. Sources inside the company suggest the process could take a year and that the process is merely a matter of good management.

King refuses to quash rumours that he is interested in the F1 job – he only ever says that he is “not aware of a vacancy”. He is a huge racing fan and has helped his son Jordan to become one of the most promising drivers of his generation.

But if the call from Ecclestone, F1′s diminutive owner, fails to come, a career in politics might appeal.

King is a former board member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and was a member of David Cameron’s business advisory group – before they fell out over King’s objections to government plans to allow new staff to surrender employment rights in exchange for shares.

However, poor pay in the public sector could prove a sticking point for the businessman, who earned £3m last year – 20 times more than the PM.

On the subject of King’s future, analysts at Barclays wrote: “No CEO remains forever, and at some point Justin King will prove the press predictions correct and move on. However, he may be keen to be in charge when Sainsbury’s regains its number two market-share position from Asda – his former employer.”

That could happen later this year, after a remarkable 33 consecutive quarters of growth.

According to industry data from Kantar Worldpanel, Sainsbury’s is outperforming its rivals as the only big four supermarket to be increasing its market share. The grocer now accounts for nearly 17% of all the money spent on groceries in the UK, a slight rise on last year, at a time when Morrisons, Asda and Tesco all lost customers.

Sainbury’s successful Paralympics sponsorship, leading position in convenience stores and growing online presence have also helped, while Tesco’s decision to open no more megastores, and write off £800m on land it had bought for new developments but will now never use, may also give King cause to crow.

He was always angry about Tesco’s land-grab. “If you’re acquiring a site just a mile from an existing site, are you doing it because you think it’s valuable to trade, or because it stops a competitor?”

And his vitriol for the number one supermarket doesn’t stop there. He is equally scathing about Tesco’s new price promotion, which promises shoppers that Tesco’s prices for own-label and branded goods are cheapest. Having complained directly to Tesco and failed to reach a compromise, Sainsbury’s has now appealed to the Advertising Standards Authority. “We have exhausted everything we could with them [Tesco], so were left with no choice but to go to the ASA,” he says.

“You can’t have advertising saying that where your chicken comes from is important, while at the same time still sourcing your chicken from Thailand and Brazil, and then doing a price comparison with Sainsbury’s chicken, which is sourced from the UK. That is inherently unfair.”

Tesco said: “We use an independent agency to check prices of branded and own-label products at other retailers – online daily for Asda and Sainsbury’s, and, since they don’t have an online grocery service, twice a week at Morrisons stores. The basis for our comparisons is made clear on the price promise website.”

This may not be enough to soothe King’s feelings, but perhaps he will soon be directing his passions elsewhere. Less horsemeat, more horsepower?