The Co-operative Group has announced interim results for the 26 weeks ended 1 July 2017, with Food like-for-like sales up by 3.5%, reflecting 14 consecutive quarters of LFL sales growth, and core convenience LFL sales up by 4.5%.
Reported Food sales were down 1.2% at £3.48bn but were 0.7% higher year-on-year when excluding the sales from the 298 stores sold to McColl’s during the first half.
In the first six months, Co-op Food has reported sales of £3,476m (2016: £3,518m). The year-on-year decrease is due to the impact of stores being sold which are not part of our core strategy moving forwards. Excluding these disposals, total sales were up 0.7%.
Like-for-like store sales continued to increase ahead of the market at 3.5%. Underlying profit was broadly in line with last year at £65m (2016: £63m), while operating profits rose to £77m (2016: £63m), principally due to gains on property and business disposals and increases in investment property values.
As the group passed the half year, Jo Whitfield became the new permanent Food CEO, another strong internal appointment and the first woman in the UK to lead a national Food retailer.
In May, the Co-op agreed with independent petrol service station operator MRH to pilot seven new franchise convenience stores. The principle of franchises is not new to the Co-op movement and the model provides a low-cost way to rapidly increase our Co-op presence across the UK. Early trials with MRH have performed strongly with sales in those stores up by over 50%.
The company opened 34 new Food stores in the first half of the year and we are on track to hit our target of 100 new stores by the end of 2017.
In May, the firm became the only supermarket to use British meat in all sandwiches and pork pies, driving a 6% increase in like-for-like sales of British meat in the first half. This was followed by a further commitment in May to source only 100% British bacon and lamb
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In a retailer first, the Co-op moved to a position of sourcing only Fairtrade cocoa across our entire own brand range. This landmark move increased the Fairtrade cocoa sourced by Co-op five times and includes 200 Co-op own brand products.
The group also committed to ensuring 100% of all its packaging is recyclable in the future. It is the only retailer that has signed up with Global Investment Fund for Water (GIFFW) to tackle water poverty. It will be giving an additional 1p per litre from sales of other water brands to support the new Global Fund. That will bring its total annual commitment to water poverty to more than £2m a year.
