Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket group, said yesterday that its third-quarter UK sales rose by 6.4 per cent after stripping out sales from new selling space. Tesco's sales also confirmed the expected slowdown in the industry's exceptional sales growth this year had begun to show. The group, with 77 stores and around 10,000 staff in Ireland, said that in the first quarter of the year Tesco had achieved growth of 6.7 per cent which accelerated to 7.4 per cent in the second quarter - above the industry average.

Total group sales were up 12.2 per cent, with Britain contributing 9.2 per cent growth, while international sales grew 34 per cent. But a company spokeswoman said no figures were available for its Irish operation.

Tesco, which is making a big push into non-food products and developing markets, said it was continuing to outperform rivals, despite slowing sales growth.

Smaller rival Safeway said last week its same-store sales growth was 5.7 per cent for the six months to October 13th.

During the same period the UK's second-biggest food retailer J Sainsbury saw growth of 6 per cent. "It is a good performance from Tesco," said an analyst at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney.