UK supermarkets are facing political backlash after expecting bumper earnings despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

According to liberal democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, it was “outrageous” that supermarkets were reporting soaring profits, in a time where families “struggle to put food on the table or fill up their tanks”, the Times reported.

This comes as Sainsbury’s revealed it aims to make around £690 million in pre-tax profit when its full-year results are announced in March. Rival Big 4 grocer Tesco is also projecting its forecast for operating profits of between £2.4 billion and £2.5 billion, compared with  a five-year average of £2.17 billion.

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Commenting on the backlash, former Iceland boss Bill Grimsey added: “There is enough to suggest some profiteering is going on and who is paying the price for that? The customer.”

He claimed it was difficult to reconcile supermarket rhetoric around shielding consumers from inflation with the profits they were forecasting.

The news comes as UK grocery sales in the lead-up to Christmas were down 3% from the year before, however up from the same period pre-pandemic 2019, according to research by Kantar.