Sales and profit up at The Co-op's food business

The Co-operative Food has posted an increase in both like-for-like sales and profit.

The UK's fifth-largest grocery retailer said underlying profits increased by 1.5 per cent to £251 million in the year to January 3.

Overall like-for-like sales in the food side of the business, meanwhile, were up by 0.4 per cent, and had increased by 3.2 per cent in the business' 'core' convenience-stores.

Group revenue slipped to £9.4 billion from £9.7bn last year, while The Co-operative Group's underlying operating profit slipped to £172m from £177m; the strong performance in food offseting losses in insurance.

Touching upon last year's sale of 15 of its farms to the Wellcome Trust, Richard Pennycook, group CEO, said: “A significant element of our 2014 profit relates to one-off disposal gains on the sale of our farms and pharmacy businesses and property disposals. Without these we would, at best, have broken even.'

The Co-operative Food acquired 82 c-stores and refurbished more than 700 stores in the financial year the data covers.

It also lowered prices across 40 categories, and invested in its own-brand product.