Asda sales growth slowed ahead of leadership shake-up

Asda’s food sales slowed in the weeks before Allan Leighton stepped back from leading the grocer’s turnaround, to be replaced by a former Morrisons and Tesco boss.

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The discount supermarket grew its like-for-like food sales by 0.1 per cent in its third quarter, marking a slowdown from the significant uplift in sales it had seen at the start of this period.

The group had already disclosed 0.7 per cent like-for-like sales growth in food for the seven weeks to mid-August, but Friday’s figures, which cover the full 13 weeks to the end of September, show this uplift has since tailed off.

Asda has been pushing for a turnaround since appointing Allan Leighton, who led the grocer to its 1990s heyday, as executive chairman in November 2024.

He stepped back into a non-executive role last week, and was replaced by former Morrisons boss David Potts, who took up the reins as chief executive on Tuesday.

Leighton said in August that the group was in the “foothills of recovery” after