Breakfast briefing: Retail news on Scottish retail sales and supermarkets

Scottish retailers report surge in Christmas sales

Retailers in Scotland reported a 4.3% increase in like-for-like sales in December compared with a decrease of 0.4% a year earlier, according to data from the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) and KPMG, The Scotsman reported.

The total Scottish sales increased 0.7% during November 27 to December 31.

However, the total non-food sales declined 0.7% compared with a year earlier.

SRC’s policy and external affairs head Ewan MacDonald-Russell said: “A strong last week before Christmas led to the strongest rise in Scottish sales since January 2014. Adjusted for deflation, total sales rose by 2.1%."

“It’s encouraging to see another good month’s performance, which builds on a good November, and continues the autumn trend of a small but now sustained recovery in retail sales.”

Supermarkets under scrutiny from MPs for wasteful food deals

Supermarkets who had once promised to end the 'wasteful' buy-one-get-one-free deals on fresh food are under scrutiny by MPs as their websites still promote the deals, Daily Mail Online reported.

The policy was put in place to reduce food waste as customers were buying food they did not require.

The MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee questioned the executives from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose on what actions are they taking to reduce food waste.

The supermarkets said that people shopping online are more prone to buy in bulk and so these offers were designed to appeal to them.

MPs were, however, not satisfied with the explanation.

The stores said they have made efforts to reduce food waste and also distributed fresh produce to charities and food banks.