MORRISONS has announced a rise in sales over the Christmas shopping period for a fourth consecutive year, boosted by its wholesale division.

The Bradford-based chain said sales for the nine weeks to January 6 had risen 3.6 per cent, with retail sales rising 0.6 per cent and its wholesale arm, which supplies Amazon and McColls, up 3 per cent.

Including fuel, the like-for-like sales were up 3.4 per cent on the previous year.

However the number of retail transactions was down 0.9 per cent over the same period, while the items per basket were up 0.8 per cent.

The firm said it had been "more competitive" with the price of a basket of key Christmas items the same as last year.

It added that customer satisfaction had also increased significantly, which was an important measure of the firm's turnaround progress.

This was despite "changes in consumer behaviour" where customers were more cautious about how much they were spending in the earlier stages of the period.

David Potts, chief executive, said: “This is Morrisons fourth consecutive Christmas of like for like sales growth during the turnaround.

"Our performance shows colleagues are listening hard and responding to customers, providing consistently great value and good quality when it matters most. I would once again like to thank the whole Morrisons team for what they continue to do for our customers.

“Morrisons is well set to keep improving the shopping trip and become more and more relevant for more customers."

In the run up to the festive period, the firm cut the cost of its core basket of 100 customers' favourite items by 23 pence.

The basket included the core items that customers need at Christmas including cranberry sauce, tin foil and sprouts and is used by the company to judge its competitiveness during the festive season.

Mr Potts added that this had been an "important move" for the firm, and that it had in fact kept the prices the same the previous year too, so customers were benefitting from 2016 prices.

He added that they sold 1million bags of wonky vegetables over Christmas, which was double last year's sales. In addition in Christmas week they sold 8m bags of vegetables in a three for a £1 offer, which equated to 10,000 tonnes of veg - up 10 per cent on last year.

Yesterday the firm also announced it was cutting the price of 935 products by an average of 20 per cent in a Price Crunch which will typically be held for a minimum of 12 weeks.

The supermarket, along with Asda and Sainsbury's, also said it was reducing the price of fuel to help shoppers save after the excesses of Christmas.