John Lewis Partnership, the high street department store, saw overall sales surge more than 20 per cent in the crucial Christmas week, although most of its growth came from Waitrose, its chain of upmarket food stores.
Sales at the employee-owned chain rose 22.1 per cent in the week to December 27. Turnover at Waitrose soared 40.6 per cent to £111.3m, including the strongest trading day in its history on December 23, easily outperforming a 1.2 per cent increase in sales to £71m for John Lewis’s high street flagship chains.
