Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has today followed rival Tesco with a ‘strong’ sales report.

Despite recording like-for-like sales up 5.4 per cent in its second quarter, Sainsbury’s warned they expected growth to be slow due to "reduced inflation".

Yesterday Tesco said its second quarter like-for-like sales in the UK had risen by 2.1 per cent.

In Sainsbury’s trading statement today, the chain said like-for-like sales, ignoring new store openings and excluding fuel, were up 4.6 per cent for the 16 weeks to October 3rd. Weekly transactions were now over 18.5 million, which is up 800,000 year on year.

Sainsbury’s chief executive, Justin King, said the chain was "delighted to be named ‘Supermarket of the Year’ at the Retail Industry Awards 2009", but warned of tough times ahead.

He said: "Our performance in the first half continues to show good progress as we also invest for the future. While we expect market growth to slow in the coming months due to reduced inflation, the universal appeal of our focus on quality and value leaves us well positioned going forward."

Mr King also said Sainsbury’s had seen their non-food items growing at nearly three times the rate of food, and online food home delivery service had seen sales growth of 20 per cent. Much like Tesco, the firm also said new jobs would be created (10,000) in the next two years, through opening new stores.

He added: "Recruitment for our 20,000 Christmas temporary colleagues begins next week and we are well on track to achieve our target of 500 places on our apprenticeship schemes for bakers, butchers and fishmongers."

Yesterday Tesco’s chief executive Terry Leahy said the company was "well-placed for the global recovery" and the store had been able to take on 6,500 staff over the last six-month period.

And the British Retail Consortium (BRC) today said shoppers were likely to be able to take advantage of low inflation for some time, saying prices were likely to remain low up until Christmas.

Today they released their BRC-Neilsen Shop Price Index (SPI) which they said remained deflationary for the second consecutive month in September.

Overall shop prices fell 0.1 per cent in September, compared with the same month last year, but food inflation increased 2.5 per cent for the month, compared with 2.3 per cent in August.

BRC director general, Stephen Robertson, said: "More good news for customers. Overall shop prices are down on a year ago for the second month in a row. Prices for non-food goods have been deflationary for ten consecutive months now with clothing, electricals and furniture showing the biggest falls as retailers discount to generate sales.

"Fresh food inflation fell to its lowest level since the index began in 2005 – a dramatic contrast with a year ago. Shop prices for some manufactured foods increased more quickly than last month as big increases in the world prices of sugar and cocoa pushed up costs but this wasn’t enough to affect overall shop price inflation.

"Generally, lower prices are likely to go on helping households in the run up to Christmas."

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