High street food retailers remain defiant

Jan 23 2008 By Jez Davison, Evening Gazette

HIGH STREET food retailers are defiant in the face of growing supermarket heavyweight dominance which saw Morrisons announce buoyant Christmas trading figures yesterday.

The Bradford-based chain, which gained more than 4m extra customers during the festive period, saw like-for-like sales excluding petrol soar 9.5% in the six weeks to January 6 and enjoyed record trading across its 375 stores.

The results came on the back of Tesco, the UK’s biggest retailer, reporting a 3.1% rise in UK sales and 26.9% in international sales in the six weeks to January 5.

But smaller independent Tees Valley retailers said a diversity of product range and competitive pricing will do more than government protectionism to ensure their survival.