Spar International has been forced to retract trading figures relating to its UK business in its annual report.

The global food retailer had yesterday reported that sales had fallen at its UK arm for the calendar year 2013. However, Spar UK managing director Debbie Robinson today admitted that the information published was in fact incorrect.

“Unfortunately, the information printed in the SPAR International report about the UK’s financial performance is incorrect,” said Robinson.

Retail sales for Spar UK in fact increased by 1.05% for the financial year ending April 26 2014, with like-for-like sales up 3.6%. Sales per square ft rose 2.2%and store numbers were at 2,323 at the end of the financial year.

Using figures provided by Spar International from its annual report, Retail Week previously reported that Spar UK unveiled a retail sales drop of 1.8% to €3bn (£2.4bn) for 2013.

Spar International operates over 12,000 stores worldwide and revealed a global retail sales rise of 4.1% to €32.2 billion (£26bn) for the year. It said this growth was a result of “a significant strategic focus for the brand on new and emerging markets, with Spar operations in China, Russia and the Middle East delivering further rapid expansion of their store networks”.