Today’s Kantar grocery market data told another tale of discounter growth as sales at Aldi and Lidl surged once again, but Morrisons may be quietly pleased.

Today’s Kantar grocery market data told another tale of discounter growth as sales at Aldi and Lidl surged once again.

So far, so familiar.

But the figures also tell another story: there are signs that Morrisons’ fightback against the discounters may be working.

Morrisons warned on profits at its full-year results in March and subsequently slashed thousands of prices as it acknowledged it had to confront Aldi and Lidl head-on.

While the Kantar numbers showed that Morrisons’ sales slipped by 1.9% over the 12 weeks to August 17, broker Bernstein observed that in the final four weeks they moved into positive territory for the first time since October 2013. Morrisons’ food sales advanced 2.3% over the shorter period.

Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips can’t afford to relax just yet. Aldi’s sales rose by almost 30% over the 12 weeks and Lidl’s by 18%.

But, impressive as such a showing is, it was actually Aldi’s slowest growth rate since June last year and Lidl’s slowest in six months, Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne noted.

He said: “The comeback of Morrisons is showing some signs of slightly slowing the growth of the discounters.”

Morrisons issues interims on September 11, when it will be interesting to see whether Philips has a new spring in his step.

If his strategy works over a longer period Philips would, were he not so polite, no doubt take delight in telling the truculent Sir Ken to stick the Kantar figures in his pipe and smoke ‘em.