Sainbury's this year shunned print by sending its 120,000 shareholders an electronic version of the report, it said, as part of its "respect for our environment" campaign.

However, in a letter to the Financial Times, Johnson said: "Instead of trying something new, the company has tried to pull the wool over our eyes.

"The paper industry is one of the great success stories of modern recycling. Paper is not the enemy of the environment it is made out to be."

He added that the electronic report, which most readers will print on a power-sapping office printer, probably on one-sided paper, was a "phoney" attempt to hide a cost-cutting exercise.

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said: "It is certainly not our intention to inconvenience our shareholders: last year, they overwhelmingly approved proposals to take advantage of the new rules on the way we communicate with them.

"This year we have a full-colour illustrated review online at our corporate website and we believe this is a change for the better and is in keeping with our corporate responsibility principle of 'respect for our environment'."