Waitrose enjoys record Christmas sales Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose, said sales of fresh food, champagne, and party food particularly accelerated over Christmas for the company. He added: "Our sales for the festive period as a whole have been record-breaking but the 12 trading days leading up to New Year's Eve were exceptional as customers got ready for family entertaining and parties. The combination of our inspiring celebratory food and drink together with great value and offers proved to be a winning combination. Morrisons will be the first of the listed supermarkets to reveal its Christmas trading figures next week, with analysts predicting that like-for-like sales could be down by more than 2.5pc. Philip Dorgan, analyst at Panmure Gordon, said the Bradford-based retailer could be forced to issue a profits warning. He added: "Whether there is a profit warning accompanying Monday's trading statement is a moot point. We do, however, see further downside to consensus profits, given the likely continued sales underperformance and we believe that management would be best advised to realign expectations. This would enable it to focus on fixing its business, rather than defending an unsustainable level of profit, which would only result in its problems compounding. Last January, Tesco issued a profits warning after disappointing Christmas trading. However, analyst at Deutsche Bank expect the retailer to post like-for-like sales growth of 0.8pc in the UK for this Christmas as its recovery from the profits warning gathers pace.