His father was John Benjamin Sainsbury, while his mother, the daughter of Jacob Van den Bergh, was from a Dutch Jewish family.

[1] As he was divorced from his first wife, he spent little time with his sons John Davan, Simon and Timothy, and so they only got to know their father when they joined the family firm.

When Alan's son John became a peer in 1989, he took the title Baron Sainsbury of Preston Candover to differentiate between them.

[4] Alan Sainsbury was instrumental in bringing the self-service supermarket to Britain and shaping many of the conditions by which we shop for food today.

He introduced oven-ready frozen chickens and the simple but powerful slogan "Good Food Costs Less at Sainsbury's" in 1959.

Alan Sainsbury first entered politics by standing as a Liberal parliamentary candidate at Sudbury in the 1929, 1931 and 1935 general elections, before joining the Labour Party in 1945.

In February 1981, he was one of 100 prominent supporters of the 'Gang of Four', who had broken away from Labour to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

[6] Although his nephew David also became a member of the 'continuing' SDP, his son John elected to take the Conservative whip when made a peer in 1989, thereby sitting in opposition to his father.