Sainsbury’s warning as sales slump

Supermarket Sainsbury’s warned that the market is growing at its slowest pace for nearly a decade as it broke a nine-year run of underlying sales growth.

The group revealed that like-for-like sales excluding fuel slumped 3.1% in the 10 weeks to March 15, marking a sharp reversal of recent fortunes and the first fall after 36 consecutive quarters of rising sales in a row.