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Waitrose has said the return of The Great British Bake Off has helped its sales, excluding petrol, rise by 3.1% in the week to 15 August.

It said that after ‘biscuit week’ on the show, sales of almonds rose by 100%, dried cranberries rose by 47% and star anise increased by 43%. “Even those less inclined to get baking themselves were inspired to sample some sweet treats – sales at our patisserie counter rose 20%.”

Despite the poor August weather, summer drink sales were strong, with Pimm’s up 165% year-on-year and mixers up 24%. Beer sales increased by 11% compared to last year and ready-to-drink cocktails were up 23%.

There was an increase in summer foods such as salad (up 15%) and freshly prepared vegetables (up 9%) , but ready meals were also up, with sales of hot pies up 7%, curry up 11% and its classics range like cottage pie up 28%.

In the two weeks in the second half of its financial year, Waitrose sales ex petrol, are up 2.7%.

Including petrol, sales are 2.5% in the two weeks, but were rising by 9.8% this time last year.

Morning update

It’s all quiet on the corporate front this morning, with the usual slow Friday newsflow exacerbated by the August holidays.

The FTSE has opened lower yet again, already falling 0.7% this morning to 6,322.6pts. Associated British Foods is leading the FTSE 100 grocery fallers so far today, dropping 1% to 3,180p in early trading.

Yesterday in the City

Yesterday was another downbeat day for the City, with the FTSE 100 falling for the 8th day in a row – the worst run since 2011.

The FTSE dropped a further 0.5% yesterday to 6,367pts on global economic worries centred on China and more political instability in Greece. It has now lost more than 10% of its value since its peak of over 7,100pts back in April.

A wide range of grocery stocks were caught up in the sell-off despite the relatively positive news for retailers from the Office for National Statistics that retail sales in July grew 0.1% on the previous month – an improvement on the 0.1% fall seen in June (albeit lower than the 0.4% growth expected by analysts).

Ocado (OCDO) plunged 4.6% just yesterday to drop to 354.7p, while Booker (BOK) fell 2.3% to 172.3p and Poundland (PNLD) dropped 1.7% to 351.6p.

Investors remained unmoved by British American Tobacco’s (BAT) agreement to buy the rest of its Brazilian subsidiary Souza Cruz, with the shares falling 2% to 3,582.5p. SABMiller (SAB) also fell 2% to 3,156.5p

It was a better day for the supermarkets, which traded pretty much flat – with Tesco’s (TSCO) 0.5% drop to 193.7p the biggest movement.

WH Smiths (SMWH) upgraded its profits forecast yesterday, but the shares still dropped 1.3% to 1,549p.

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