co-op

The Co-op has reported strong sales growth over Christmas, with like-for-likes up 3.5% in the three weeks ending 31 December.

The retailer said its investment in stores, focus on convenience and its heavyweight advertising campaign in the run up to the festive season had put it in a “strong place.”

The Co-op opened more than 100 stores in 2016, investing more than £70m in new food branches and over £60m on refitting existing shops.

“Before Christmas we knew that we were in a really good place to have a great seasonal trading period,” said Co-op retail chief executive Steve Murrells,

“We’d learnt a lot from 2015 and had strong plans in place to deliver a fantastic Co-op Christmas. The focus on convenience and an ever stronger local supermarket offer resulted in a strong trading period. Our strategy of serving up ‘good food which does good’ and our ever improving store estate is attracting shoppers.”

The Co-op launched a Christmas TV ad in December that stressed its ethical credentials.

Viewers were urged to think about how buying its produce could help the local community and charities.

Local causes

The campaign came after the Co-op re-launched its membership offer in September to give members 5% back on the cost of Co-op own-label products and donate 1% to nominated local causes.

Murrells added; “The launch of membership earlier in the year gave our members and customers a really compelling reason to choose us and all the hard work on improving our availability and our product range was already paying off. Whilst lots of people headed to the big supermarkets for their Christmas shop, we still had millions of customers coming to our stores, with our busiest trading day falling Christmas Eve.”

The Co-op said its biggest selling line was its own-brand Prosecco but claimed to have had great sales success across produce as a whole.

“Availability on core lines was better than ever in the run up to the big day,” said Murrells.

“In fact in Christmas week our availability across the store was much better than last year with 300,000 fewer gaps. Friday 23 December was the biggest day for our members redeeming the money they’d saved up through the membership 5% against their shopping, but there’s still an amazing £10m sitting in their digital wallets.”

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