Morrisons, the UK-based retail group, has reported that total sales excluding fuel rose 9.5 per cent during the third quarter of the year, with like-for-like sales excluding fuel increasing by 8.1 per cent.

The strong results were a result of the success of the group's Market Street fresh food format and Price Crunch deals on popular items, it said.

'In this challenging economic environment more customers than ever before are choosing Morrisons,' said group chief executive officer Marc Bolland. 'Our industry-leading deals and unique fresh food offers have attracted over 700,000 new customers to our stores.'

Additionally, the group confirmed that it had entered into a conditional agreement to acquire over 46,451m2 of selling space from the purchase of 38 Co-Operative Food and former Somerfield stores, at a cost of £223.1m (€258.6m).

'The economic environment is difficult and will remain challenging, but we continue to have confidence in the strength of our value proposition,' said Mr Bolland. 'Performance in the third quarter has been solid and our financial expectations for the current year remain unchanged.'

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