Sticky inflation helps Tesco ‘rake in mountains of cash’ as profits jump to more than £2bn

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Tesco said customers are experiencing “sticky” inflation on popular items such as chocolate, potatoes and coffee as it unveiled profits of more than £2bn. Tesco has also benefited from a slowdown in the wider food and drink inflation, with the latest industry data from Kantar showing this slowed to a new two-year low of 4.5 per cent last month. He said: “I see that stabilising, that kind of low single digit for the rest of the year is our planning assumption.” The supermarket group also said on Wednesday that it would hand £70m to about 220,000 workers, worth roughly £300 per worker, due to the “strong” performance. The company said retail like-for-like sales grew by 6.8 per cent for the year, as it benefited from a return to volume growth in the UK and Ireland in the second half of the year as the easing of price inflation led shoppers to buy more products.