Sainsbury'sSainsbury's has benefited from an extra two million visits from shoppers in the week of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee amid strong demand for party food and bunting.

The UK's third biggest supermarket chain, which operates more than 1,000 stores, said underlying sales rose 1.4% in the 12 weeks to June 9, which was slower than the 2.6% in the previous quarter but according to the grocer was still stronger than the rest of the market.

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Sainsbury's saw 24 million customer transactions - about two million more than normal - in the week of the jubilee and sold 550 miles of bunting, 670,000 Union Jack flags and more than 600,000 bottles of champagne and sparkling wine.

It enjoyed its best ever weekly sales of strawberries, with more than two million punnets sold, 13% greater than the previous record in Wimbledon week last year.

The strong performance will heap more pressure on struggling market leader Tesco, which earlier this week reported a 1.5% fall in underlying sales for a period not including jubilee week.

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