TESCO ROLLERCOASTER

BUCKING inflation and keeping prices low helped Tesco boast its best quarterly sales performance in seven years.

Sales in stores open more than a year jumped 2.3pc in the 13 weeks to May 27 as the grocer continued its recovery under boss Dave Lewis.

Shares in Tesco, which reported its sixth-consecutive quarter of growth, soared in early trading but news that Amazon had bought upmarket grocer Whole Foods for £10.7bn sent them plummeting. They ended down 4.9pc, or 8.85p, at 171.1p.

Jasper Lawler, senior market analyst at trading firm London Capital Group, said: ‘Investors flipped from satisfaction at the highest sales growth in seven years to fears that Amazon could knock it off its perch as Britain’s No 1 supermarket.’

Lewis said food inflation in its stores was just 1.4pc.