Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy has said January has proven to be “intensely competitive” in the grocery sector as consumers “tighten their pockets” post-Christmas period.

The supermarket, which today posted record breaking Christmas sales and its highest market share since 2016, has said it is “working very hard to earn the basket” this month as “the whole customer sentiment tightens up”.

It comes after Tesco “went a little bit harder and really invested in value” over the third quarter, according to Murphy, up two to three percentage points higher year on year than Christmas 2023.

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Murphy explained that Tesco’s “very strong value proposition” over the festive period “really helped” its trading, as it noticed that customers were spreading their spend “more than they have in previous years”.

“We saw a lot of early buyers into some of the big purchases, so frozen turkeys were up quite significantly this year, our meat joints, which we launched early this year, showed very strong growth, so you could see people managing their spend over the period.”

However, shoppers were also “willing to trade up”, according to the Tesco boss, as it saw 15.5% sales growth in its premium Finest offer, which was off the back of “very strong growth” the year before.

He said this was a “real testament to the fact that they [shoppers] love the innovation we put into the brand” and a “great performance by the Finest team”.