Tesco rolls out top 30 Booker products to stores
The supermarket chain, which merged with the wholesaler in March, said it had also launched an integrated offer in its Gallions Reach Shopping Park store in London, which is to be rolled out to eight more sites.
The news came as the company unveiled its interim results for 2018/2019, which revealed that group sales hit £28.3bn, up 12.8% while operating profit was up 24.4% to £933m.
Like-for-like (LFL) sales for Tesco UK were up 2.3% (1Q: 2.1%; 2Q: 2.5%) and Booker LFL sales were up 14.7% (1Q: 14.3%; 2Q: 15.1%)
Overall the retailer revealed that UK and Ireland LFL sales were up 3.8%, strengthened from 3.5% in the first quarter to 4.2% in the second quarter. UK and Ireland made a profit of £685m, up 47.6%. This included the first-time consolidation of £97m Booker profit and £16m synergies.
However, internationally Tesco revealed that central Europe LFL sales declined by 1.5%, due to the impact of Sunday trading regulations. Profit was £59m, down by 3.3%.
Asia also saw a decline in LFL, albeit reduced from 9% in 1Q to 4.8% in 2Q, while profits in Asia were down 29.1%
Tesco also revealed that 5,038 of 10,000 of its own-brand products had been relaunched and it also launched Jack’s, a discount supermarket.
Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said the company had made a good start to the year, with further strategic progress.
“We completed our merger with Booker in March and are delighted with performance so far. We announced a strategic alliance with Carrefour in July, which goes live this month,” he said.
“And we are now more than halfway through the biggest own-brand relaunch in our nearly 100-year history, including a significant investment in over 300 new ‘Exclusively at Tesco’ products at market-leading prices.”
