Tesco has reported like-for-like sales growth of 0.3% in its Irish stores for the three months to the end of May. It is the second quarter in a row THAT the UK retailer has reported sales growth in Ireland. Tesco said its sales performance in Ireland remained positive after significant investment in price reductions across its core food lines.

Overall group sales at Tesco increased by 0.9% for the first quarter of its financial year, with a positive performance across all its business units. Tesco added that it was seeing strong volume growth across the business, particularly in the produce and meat categories.

Turnaround plan

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Since recording a £6.4bn loss in 2014, Tesco has been on a turnaround plan under the guidance of new chief executive Dave Lewis. Since taking over the UK’s largest retailer, Lewis has steered Tesco back to profitability, made it more competitive against the discount retailers as it seeks to regain market share and disposed of a string of non-core underperforming assets.

In Ireland, the group remains the second largest retailer in terms of market share, but it has closed the gap on the market leader Supervalu. According to the latest Kantar Worldpanel figures, Tesco has a 22.4% share of the Irish grocery market with an extra 10,000 Irish shoppers visiting the store per week compared to last year.

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