Somerfield is expected to announce a giant leap in profits this week as a result of it store refurbishment and cost-cutting programme.
Analysts are expecting profits before tax and exceptional items of £38million - £40m, compared with £25.8m last year.
The supermarket has worked on improving its supply chain and reducing the number of depots to 16 from the 22 it had almost two years ago. It has also exited some of the loss-making Kwik Save stores and is converting some of them to the Somerfield format.
During the first-half of this year, same-store sales at Somerfield rose 2.2 per cent, while underlying Kwik-Save sales fell one per cent. In May the company reported a 1.1 per cent rise in annual like-for-like sales across the group. Executive chairman John von Spreckelsen attributed this to higher sales of own label products, as well as improvements to the shops themselves.
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