The boss of Sainsbury’s has insisted customers like self-checkout tills, even as other supermarkets ditch them because of a backlash. Simon Roberts insisted that Sainsbury’s shoppers “like the speedy checkout” offered by self-serve tills. His commitment to the technology comes even as rivals scrap the devices. Northern grocer Booths replaced self-checkout machines with human cashiers at all but two of its 27 sites last year, after a survey of its customers found they were difficult to use. In the US, Walmart and Costco have rolled back the use of self checkouts. Mr Roberts said: “If you visit one of our supermarkets, what you’ll see is definitely more self checkouts than a number of years ago, because actually a lot of customers like the speedy checkout.” However, he added the supermarket would not give up on having cashiers in shops. “Over the last year, where we’ve put more self checkouts in, we’re always making sure that the traditional kind of belted checkout is there.” Last year, Tesco’s chief executive Ken Murphy was forced to defend its self-checkouts after a petition calling for their rollout to be halted gained thousands of signatures. Concerns have also been raised that self-checkouts are aiding shoplifters,...