Tesco CEO Ken Murphy is “confident” in Booker’s performance as the business ramps up its investment in fresh and frozen, despite a 3.2% decline in sales in the first quarter of the year.
For the 13 weeks to 30 May 2026, like-for-like sales at the Tesco-owned wholesaler fell 3.2% to £2.2bn.
Core retail sales declined 1.5%, driven by the ending of a lower-margin national account in August 2025 and the prior year benefiting from favourable weather, Tesco said.
Core catering sales declined 3.3%, with sales in the year before supported by weather and a later Easter.
Despite this, Murphy said he was “confident in Booker’s performance”, as he assured the Booker team is doing “all the right things to maintain momentum in the business”.
“Booker had a very strong performance last year. On a two-year basis the core catering and retail businesses are in good shape,” he said.
Two-year like-for-like sales in the wholesaler’s core retail business are up 3.2%, with a 2.9% rise across core catering.
To offset the sales dip in the first quarter, Murphy said Booker is putting a greater focus on its fresh and frozen offerings.
“We recognise we need to continuously innovate in our product offering at Booker, so as we’ve seen the trend in retail move towards more fresh, we’re also mirroring that in our Booker portfolio with a stronger fresh offering.
“We’re also reformulating and innovating around our own-brand range both in frozen and in fresh for our catering and retail customers.”
Murphy said the “number one thing” the wholesaler is focused on is customer satisfaction, with the business having made further progress in customer satisfaction scores including price, speed and availability. Over the quarter, Booker also added 146 net new retailer partners.
“Whether we are doing the right things for our retail customers and for our catering customers is something we are very focused on and that gives me confidence that we are well set, so if we do see an upturn in the industry Booker will benefit from that,” Murphy explained.
Other focus areas for Booker this year include its value for money proposition, which Murphy said is “critical” to the brand. “Being lean and efficient and really customer-centric around our pricing is something we remain laser-focused on.”
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