Value grocer Aldi generated sales of almost £1bn in December.

Aldi described the performance as its best ever UK Christmas trading period. The week of December 17 was Aldi’s busiest ever as sales surged 10% year-on-year.

Aldi UK chief executive Giles Hurley said: “We begin the new year on the back of record Christmas sales.”

He said: “Although we saw strong growth across all key categories, the standout performance was in our Specially Selected brand where shoppers treated themselves to premium products for a fraction of the price they would have paid elsewhere for similar quality products.”

Aldi’s update is the first from a big grocer.

Morrisons, Marks & Spencer Sainsbury’s and Tesco will all report later this week. Last year Tesco opened a discount format, Jack’s, in response to the rise of Aldi and its value counterpart Lidl.

Aldi opened 65 new stores last year and now has 827. It intends to have 1,200 UK branches by the end of 2025.

Morrisons said today that it will cut the prices of more than 900 products, The Guardian reported.

Aldi said it assess Morrisons’ price reductions, but said it was confident that its stores “would still be cheaper to shop in”.