British retailer The John Lewis Partnership on Friday gave the following sales figures for the latest week compared to a year earlier.

Week to Sep. 12 6 weeks to Sep. 12

Total sales 6.2 pct 6.2 pct

Dept stores -2.8 pct -1.3 pct

Food group 12.7 pct 11.3 pct

We faced a big week from a year ago and that, and the combination of good weather for a significant part of the week, meant that we missed last year's figure by 2.8 percent, but were nicely up on two years ago, John Lewis said of the performance of its department stores.