Sainsbury's stretches sales growth record

Resurgent supermarket chain Sainsbury’s stretched its record of sales growth today after shoppers took up Jamie Oliver’s advice to “try something new”.

The advertising campaign featuring the celebrity chef helped the UK’s third largest grocer lift like-for-like sales by 5.2% in the 12 weeks to the end of the year – the company’s fourth successive quarter of improvement.

The trading update came a day after market research group TNS Superpanel said Sainsbury’s had taken its largest share of the market for two years.

Closing the gap on second-placed rival Asda, TNS said Sainsbury’s controlled 16.2% of the grocery market, compared with 15.9% a year ago.

Sainsbury’s has revived its performance through better stock availability and a drive to improve service.

Chief executive Justin King said: “The customer experience is much improved, but we still need to achieve this at a more acceptable cost.”