Tesco said food inflation has “lessened substantially” as it revealed higher sales and profits for the past year.

The UK’s largest supermarket group posted an adjusted operating profit of £2.83 billion for the year to February, up almost 13% on the previous year.

Tesco said retail like-for-like sales grew by 6.8% for the year, as it benefited from a return to volume growth in the UK and Ireland in the second half of the year as easing price inflation led shoppers to buy more products.

Chief executive Ken Murphy said: “Customers are choosing to shop more at Tesco, which is reflected in growing market share as they respond to the improvements we’ve made to the value and quality of our products.

“Inflationary pressures have lessened substantially; however, we are conscious that things are still difficult for many customers, so we have worked hard to reduce prices and have now been the cheapest full-line grocer for well over a year.”