The food and drink retail sector performed well over Christmas, going against predictions that the industry would suffer from the recession, a new report said today.
Grant Thornton’s review of trading updates – which compiles 37 retailer updates – revealed like-for-like sales of food and drink increased over the Christmas trading period.
Three of the top five individual retailers were from this sector, Grant Thornton said, including the Co-operative Group and Sainsbury’s.
Head of retail services David Bush said: “Our overall conclusion is that this Christmas has been difficult for retailers but not the disaster that most commentators were predicting.
“The fundamental strength of the best retailers is that they sell products that the consumer wants at the best value. It is crucial to stress that this does not mean the cheapest price but being great value for money.”
In December, the British Retail Consortium gave a bleak view of the Christmas retail sales picture, before announcing sales figures a week ago.
All of the big four supermarkets “performed strongly”, Grant Thornton added, although some of the growth came from non-food products.
Quoting figures from IMRG, the company said that internet sales in December were up 14.2% compared with the month in 2007.
