Waitrose has announced that its festive season sales reached a record high this year, bucking the trend for most UK retailers who struggled with trading during the freezing weather conditions.
The upmarket grocery retailer said that it enjoyed its best ever Christmas, with like-for-like sales between December 1 and December 23 rising by 5.4 per cent compared with the same period last year.
The sales growth was driven by strong demand for luxury Christmas products, such as Heston Blumenthal’s Hidden Orange Christmas Pudding, which sold out within 10 days of going on sale.
Sales of its Duchy Original mince pies rose by a whopping 121 per cent over the previous year, while shoppers picked up some 710,000kg of turkey, 250 tonnes of Brussels sprouts and 990,000 chipolatas.
“It’s been a rollercoaster ride at times with big day-to-day variations in sales as customers have either stocked up ahead of the snow or caught up with their shopping when the freezing weather eased,” said Waitrose Managing Director Mark Price.
“We had a really strong December. The big thing was that as well as buying Christmas food, people were stocking up their store cupboards with soup and hot drinks .”
The supermarket chain praised the “incredible, above-and-beyond efforts” made by its staff over the festive season and added that it is expecting “another very successful sales performance” in the run-up to New Year’s Eve.
