Co-operative Food sales up 2.4% over Christmas
The Co-operative Food has reported a 2.2% increase in like-for-like for like sales during the Christmas trading period, driven by a strong performance from its convenience business.
In the three weeks ending 5 January, total sales grew by 2.4%. The Co-operative said its convenience stores performed particularly well in the period as like-for-like sales rose 5.5% following targeted promotions and new brand advertising activity.
Christmas Eve was the busiest day of the year for the food business, with takings of more than £35 million.
The strong Christmas performance also helped sustain positive trading momentum for the food business during the second half of 2012, and in particular within the final 13 weeks of the year when total food sales were up 0.6% year-on- year and up 0.3% on a like-for- like basis.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Elsewhere within the Co-operative Group’s retail operations, pharmacy over the counter sales were up 7.7% a on a like-for-like basis. Co-operative Electrical, the group’s online business, saw a 15.2% uplift on the same period last year, helped by strong sales of tablet computers, printers and laptops.
Peter Marks, group chief executive, the Co-operative Group said: “These results represent a really encouraging and resilient performance in some of the most testing trading conditions for 40 years and build on a good result achieved over the same period last year.
“The figures also helped to sustain the positive sales momentum we have seen in the second half of this year and whilst conditions remain very challenging we now enter 2013 in a position where we expect to make continued progress.”
