Safeway has reported another significant rise in takings during the last six months.
The UK's fourth largest retailer has shown a sales boom of 5.7 per cent up until mid-October 2001.
The news comes at a time when rival Sainsbury's has also recorded superb performances, seemingly making a mockery of talk of recession in the high-spending UK.
Like Sainsbury's, Safeway is involved in a major store refurbishment programme – aimed at tempting consumers back after they defected to low-cost supermarkets in the past two years.
Soaring sales at the multiple signalled the extent of the recovery after Safeway slumped into worrying times during the mid-1990s However its pre-tax profits climbed 8 per cent to £180m on the previous six months, slightly short of analysts predictions of 182m – leading to a 2.5 per cent fall in its share prices in the City.
Nevertheless, shares have more than doubled in price since the dark days of 1999.
Chairman David Webster said: 'Our strategy is on course and delivering significant performance improvement.'
