Sainsbury’s today revealed its slowest quarterly sales growth for nearly five years – and predicted a tough year ahead.

It has been hit by a slump in food inflation, which is good news for shoppers but has cut profits for big stores.

The store said that much of its profits have come from the sale of clothes.

Comparable sales in the three months to March 20 slowed to 1.7 per cent, compared with growth of 3.7 per cent in the third quarter of the year, 5.7 per cent in the second quarter and seven per cent in the first.

The store, which opened a new branch in Wombourne earlier this month, has not seen slower growth since the first quarter of its 2005 financial year.

Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, said that the fourth-quarter figures represented another “good performance in line with our expectations on top of strong growth last year”.