[1] John Benjamin Sainsbury married Mabel Van den Bergh, an heiress from a Dutch Jewish family whose fortune was made in margarine.
John Benjamin Sainsbury's sons, Alan and Robert, built the reputation of the business for quality and innovation.
Having inherited both Victorian and Jewish traditions of philanthropy, they also set the tone of the family's prevailing left-liberal social conscience.
‘Mr John’ as he became known was the keenest of the brothers and took on a range of responsibilities within Sainsbury’s: the bacon and ham departments and the buying of lamb and Ostend rabbits, the development of new shops and the maintenance of existing ones, recruiting staff and managing vehicles and stables.
He also played a key role in Sainsbury’s expansion during the 1920s and 1930s, visiting potential new store sites with his family at weekends and conducting his own market research.