Sainsbury's brings back the BFG for Big Delivery, a two-minute Christmas ad set inside Giant Country

Key Takeaways

• Sainsbury's launched its Christmas 2026 advert, Big Delivery, on Sunday 1 November, bringing back Roald Dahl's BFG for a third consecutive year.

• The 120-second film sends real Sainsbury's colleague Annie and her sidekick Fred into Giant Country to deliver a Christmas feast to the unwell BFG.

• New Commercial Arts created the campaign, Sam Brown of Rogue Films directed it, and shorter 90, 60, 40 and 20-second versions run across TV, social and online.

• Taste the Difference food stars throughout, and a special version of the advert highlights a target of funding 12 million meals through Comic Relief.

Sainsbury's has launched Big Delivery, its Christmas 2026 advert, bringing the BFG back for the third year running and sending the supermarket into his world for a change. The two-minute film sees the giant fall ill just before Christmas, so colleague Annie and her sidekick Fred load up a van and drive a festive feast into Giant Country, where a home delivery comes with rather more mountains and man-eating neighbours than the average Tuesday slot. It first aired on Sunday 1st November, in the first ad break after Arsenal v Liverpool on Sky Sports, while the full version went live on Sainsbury's social channels and website at the same time.

Sainsbury's Big Delivery sends colleague Annie and her sidekick Fred through Giant Country with a Christmas feast

The plot begins with the BFG admitting, "Hey Sainsbury's, I feel quacky as a duckhound. Think I'll miss Christmas this year." Annie and Fred set off with crates of Taste the Difference food, and the route takes them past the Greedy Giant, who returns from last year's ad announcing "I'm back for seconds!", as well as a Snozzcumber patch and a Squizzly Scotch-Hopper. Annie lures the Scotch-Hopper with a cheeseboard, adding grapes and Taste the Difference chutney to the bait, and the Greedy Giant is finally stopped by an avalanche of Brussels sprouts spilled onto the road. The pair finally reach the BFG's cave with the dinner he had given up on, and the film closes on a shared feast and the line "For everything that makes Christmas unmissable."

New Commercial Arts created the campaign, with Sam Brown of Rogue Films directing and Electric Theatre Collective handling the visual effects and animation. The team filmed in the Scottish Highlands to give Giant Country its scale, combining practical techniques with post-production tools, and the shoot also required crate after crate of sprouts to be carted up to Glasgow during a summer heatwave. Products on screen include the Taste the Difference Slow Cooked Turkey Crown with Bacon and Stuffing and a Discovery Brussels Sprout and Cavolo Nero Gratin, so the vegetable that defeats the villain also turns up on the menu.

Ian Heartfield, Founder and CCO of New Commercial Arts, said, "The BFG's back, but this time we're going to his world." He described the journey as "the ultimate Sainsbury's home delivery", a phrase that sums up how a piece of children's fantasy has been built around a service the supermarket sells every day of the year. Walmart has taken a similar route this season with A Who Knew Carol, which rebuilds The Muppet Christmas Carol as a tour of its gifts, deals and delivery options, so a much-loved family story once again ends up explaining how a retailer gets Christmas to people's doors.

Sainsbury's Big Delivery takes the BFG partnership into a third year with a £30 million Comic Relief goal

The partnership with the Roald Dahl Story Company first reached screens on 1st November 2024, when the BFG teamed up with Sainsbury's colleague Sophie to gather produce from suppliers, and it returned on 2nd November last year when the Greedy Giant ate his way through a family's Christmas shop. Each instalment has moved the setting and raised the stakes, and Alice O'Brien, Head of Global Commercial Partnerships at the Roald Dahl Story Company, said this one goes into "the craggy, mountainous Giant Country" to expand the BFG's world. Using a real colleague has been part of the formula from the start, and Annie Ferguson has returned after last year's ad, with Sainsbury's saying she has become a mini celebrity in her part of Scotland with people coming into her shop to talk to her.

Davies explained the thinking behind continuing the campaign last year when she said it "pushed all of those buttons in terms of the nostalgia and the emotion" and that customers related to the character. The numbers from that first ad supported the decision to return, since Taste the Difference grew sales by 16% over Christmas 2024 and almost 20% of big basket customers were entirely new to Sainsbury's. Last Christmas the retailer gained grocery market share for the sixth Christmas in a row, and fresh Taste the Difference sales rose 15% in the quarter, so this third film follows two years in which the BFG and the premium range have run side by side. Food advertising has become more complicated in the meantime, because Davies has pointed to changes in HFSS legislation as one of the hurdles in a slightly more challenging year, and last year's ad was already planned around those rules with products chosen in advance.

Comic Relief gives the campaign's message its most direct expression, and a special version of the advert will highlight that work. Sainsbury's has set a new goal of raising £30 million for the charity by 2030, which it says will double its impact, and its support since 2022 has helped to deliver 120 million meals to children and families across the UK. This year's target is to fund 12 million meals through food clubs, after-school dinners and school holiday meals, compared with the more than five million meals it set out to provide through the same partnership last Christmas.