Tesco racks up eighth consecutive quarter of growth as fresh food lifts Christmas sales

Tesco's recovery gained traction as strong Christmas trading helped the supermarket notch up its eighth consecutive quarter of growth.

The UK's biggest grocer said group like-for-like sales lifted 1.5% in the 13 weeks to 26 November year-on-year, buoyed by a strong performance among its fresh food ranges. Same stores sales at its core UK operations rose 1.8% in the same period.

During the Christmas period, the six weeks to 7 January, UK like-for-like sales lifted 0.7%, with party food sales jumping by almost a quarter on a year ago.

Chief executive Dave Lewis said: "We are very encouraged by the sustained strong progress that we are making across the group. In the UK, we saw our eighth consecutive quarter of volume growth and delivered a third successful Christmas."

Trading at Tesco marks a turnaround after a torrid couple of years at the business, when it posted the biggest loss in its history and was hit by a £326m accounting scandal.

Lewis, who has been leading an overhaul since he took over from former boss Philip Clarke in 2014, aims to slash costs by £1.5bn over the next three years to help boost margins and return the group to bottom-line profit growth.

Britain's so called Big Four supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrison – have been locked an intense battle for market share against discounters such as Aldi and Lidl for several years.

Earlier this week Sainsbury's said its same-store sales across the group only edged up 0.1% in the period. Although, it added total sales at Sainsbury's rose 0.8%, while total sales at Argos lifted 4.1%.