Tesco has said the horsemeat scandal has had a "small but discernible impact" on sales of frozen and chilled food, as it revealed like-for like sales (excluding VAT and petrol) fell by 1% in the first quarter of the year.
Tesco's chief executive Philip Clarke has said the horsemeat scandal has had a "small but discernible impact" on sales of frozen and chilled food:
We have started the year on track, despite a continued difficult economic environment for consumers.
This is notwithstanding our planned work on general merchandise, which has held back sales in the UK, and a small but discernible impact on frozen and chilled convenience food sales due to the customer response to equine DNA being detected in four products.
Tesco has revealed its like-for like sales excluding both VAT and petrol decreased by 1% in the first quarter of the year.
However, the retailer said total sales including VAT and petrol grew by 0.1% and by 1.0% excluding petrol, despite a subdued market.
Tesco's like-for-like sales have seen a small decrease. Credit: Press Association
Chief executive Philip Clarke said: "Conditions outside the UK remain challenging and we have broadly maintained our performance from the fourth quarter of last year.
"Whilst we are not expecting economic conditions to improve in the near term, we have a customer-focused plan for the year in each of our markets which takes this into account".
