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Total sales edged up by just 0.1% at Waitrose in the week to 16 May, though the warmer weather is boosting its food-to-go lines.
The 0.1% sales increase (excluding petrol) takes its sales increase for the first 15 weeks of its financial year to 0.7% - which is likely to represent a like-for-like decline of over 3% once new space is stripped out from the figures.
Waitrose warned it is “still seeing significant deflationary impact across categories”, citing the examples of iceberg lettuces and 1kg bags of carrots, which are each selling for 60p, compared to £1 this time last year.
During the week sandwich sales were 11% higher, salads 24% up, and packs of snacks up by 49%. Other products boosted by the warmer weather include outdoor plants, which were up by 45% last week.
Morning update
After a hectic week for financial news, it’s a far quieter end to the week ahead of the bank holiday weekend.
Most notably this morning, the Competition & Markets Authority has just announced it has extended its investigation into Reckitt Benckiser’s (RB) takeover of KY Jelly by another eight weeks. The CMA said the deal could lead to higher prices for personal lubricants and a “substantial” reduction in competition. The CMA will publish its final decision on 18 August, having referred the deal to an in-depth phase 2 investigation in January.
In the wider leisure world there is a new CEO at Whitbread (WTB), where Lloyds Banking Group’s Alison Brittain will take over from Andy Harrison. The retail director at Lloyds, who is also a non-exec director at Marks and Spencer’s, becomes the sixth women currently in charge of a FTSE 100 firm.
The market has made a good start to the day, with the FTSE 100 already 0.4% up at 7,036.8pts.
Most major grocery and fmcg stocks are on the up, led by Imperial Tobacco (IMT), up 1% at 3,322, and Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), up 1.1% at 1,486p. SSP (SSPG) was also back on the up, rising 1.4% to 306.3p.
Yesterday in the City
Booker (BOK) was one of the stars of the City yesterday after the market gave a firm thumbs up to its purchase of the Londis and Budgens convenience chains and its strong annual trading results.
The shares shot up 11.8% to 170p after it revealed profits were up 17% last year and the £40m acquisition, reaching their highest level since February 2014.
The news was decidedly more mixed for Dairy Crest (DCG), which saw revenues slip by 4% to £1.33bn for the year to 31 March and profit before tax slump by 59% to £22.1m due to tough trading conditions in the dairy business it hopes to sell to Muller. After a good run so far in May, the shares fell 6 to 487.1p on Thursday, but are still up 7.4% over the past month.
Travel specialist SSP fell 3.3% to 302p after reporting first half revenues were up 2.6% to £859.2m on a constant currency basis, but down 0.8% at actual exchange rates.
Elsewhere, M&S (MKS) built on Wednesday’s return to profit growth by gaining 1.7% to 593.5p, while the FTSE 100 generally was flat, gaining just 6pts to 7013.4pts.
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