Non-food is star performer at Sainsbury’s

Non-food sales are growing significantly faster than food sales at Sainsbury’s, which has reported an 18.5% leap in interim underlying pre-tax profits to £307m.

In the 28 weeks to October 3, sales were up 3.7% to £11.16bn and like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, saw a 5.7% rise.

The supermarket retailer said non-food sales were growing at two and a half times the rate of food sales.

Weekly customer transactions now total 18.5m, up by 800,000 on those of last year.