Supermarket group Sainsbury’s has seen the first quarter of positive like-for-like sales growth in over two years, with total sales excluding fuel rising 1.2% and like-for-like sales up 0.1%.

Although chief executive Mike Coupe emphasised that the market would “remain competitive” as food deflation continues to impact sales growth, he added that the group was making “excellent progress” with its growth strategy and added that he was confident that the group would continue to outperform its “major peers”.

Sainsbury’s recently announced that it would be phasing out  the vast majority of its multi-buy promotions across grocery products by August after a study found that multi-buy promotions don’t meet the shopping needs of today’s customers. It also announced that it would “continue to simplify our trading strategy in favour of lower regular prices”.