Marks and Spencer this week confirmed that its food business took a battering last year, with like for like sales down 1.3% in the 12 months to March 31.The troubled retailer has recovered slightly to show like for like growth of 3.2% in the last eight weeks. But while food has been struggling compared with previous years, it has not been doing as badly as the rest of the group ­ with like for like sales of general merchandise down 11.1% year on year. Chairman Luc Vandevelde believes the company's expanding food offer will play a pivotal role in its recovery. He said innovation and quality in the food offer as well as successful new product areas were the key to building on this part of the group's popularity. "Food is destination shopping at M&S for many people. We may not have exploited that traffic enough in the past," said Vandevelde. About 150 new products were introduced in the last year and more are promised before Christmas. Gross margins on food have also improved ahead of the expected payback from supply chain efficiencies. In the autumn M&S will unveil its new "brand building" ads. Food will play a major part in what the company is calling a holistic campaign that will cost millions. Vandevelde said: "Advertising will be an essential tool to improve our position. Lots of consumers don't know about the good things going on in our stores today." Vandevelde also said he was looking at the potential for more food only stores. His comments came as M&S announced that pretax profit fell from £628.4m to £557.2m during the year, excluding exceptionals and despite an extra week's trading worth £40m. The retailer was forced to cut its dividend for the first time to cover the cost of investing in the business. Vandevelde, who joined M&S three months ago in the wake of the merger between Carrefour and Promodès, promised improvement in sales and profits next year. He said if the results did not improve he would resign. {{NEWS }}

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