Sainsbury's said today its recovery programme was paying off after two years of decline.

The supermarket chain reported a 14 per cent jump in underlying annual profits.

Chief executive Sir Peter Davis, who took charge of the business two years ago, said the group was making strong progress in delivering on its promises but sales growth had slowed in the past two months.

Like-for-like sales in the recent financial year to March 30 were up by 6.3 per cent, once takings on the petrol forecourt were stripped out.

Total sales from continuing operations climbed 7.4 per cent to £18.2 billion.

Pre-tax profits increased to £627 million before one-off costs, compared with £549 million a year ago.

Sir Peter said the slower sales growth in recent weeks reflected some turbulence from the loss of the Air Miles franchise to rival Tesco earlier this year.

He said: "We are half-way through the recovery programme and quite confident about the ways things are going."

Under a three-year recovery programme to take Sainsbury's back to its roots, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was brought in to advertise new food ranges such as Taste the Difference and the group launched a drive to reinvigorate its stores.