Brewery and pub group Greene King has said that strong trading was behind record Christmas sales.

Like-for-like sales in the last six weeks were up 5%, pushing year-to-date sales up 3.8%.
Rooney Anand, chief executive officer, said: "Trading over the important Christmas and New Year period has been very strong with all of our businesses performing well, driven by the strength of our seasonal offers and our continued focus on delivering industry-leading value, service and quality to our customers.

“Our teams have excelled this festive period, particularly in terms of delivering great customer experiences, and this has helped us deliver record-breaking achievements. Retail like-for-like sales over the two most important trading weeks of the year were up over 6% and we sold a record 62,000 meals on Christmas Day. This drove record retail sales on Christmas Day of £3.1 million, up over 12% on the previous year. New Year's Eve was also very strong with retail sales up 10% to £4.5 million."