The Sainsbury's Cube was a future prediction based on the Sainsbury's brand values, the rise in online grocery shopping and home delivery services, and a prediction of how the grocery buying market would change in 10 years.

The project was carried out in 2002, and I don't think I was that far off. I predicted that home delivery services would become common place; that customer's would shop online rather than waste their time navigating a large superstore; and that, as a consequence, there would be a rise in the number of small local stores catering for essentials and special purchases, and a reduction in superstores. I also speculated that home delivery collection points (refrigerated if necessary) would exist in these small local stores to customer's didn't have to be at home and could collect their shopping locally whenever. Interestingly, these collection points now exist for goods purchased through Amazon.

The Sainsbury's Cube was developed to protect items purchased via online shopping during transit, allowing for much more efficient packing of delivery vans, as well as handling of goods. Cubes could be left open-topped or another cube could be flipped and used as a lid by interlocking, then enabling stacking. The collection points mentioned above would then have lockers sized to match the cubes to secure them for collection. Cubes could then be retained by customers as useful storage containers for use in the home, or returned to Sainsbury's to be cleaned and used again.