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Supermarket group Morrisons said its first-quarter sales fell after a surge in grocery sales as households stockpiled during the Covid-19 crisis was offset by a slump in fuel sales.
Like-for-like sales for the three months through March fell 3.9%, with fuel down 39.3%, including being down around 70% since lockdown.
Like-for-like sales excluding fuel rose 5.7%, including a 10.8% rise in the last two weeks of the quarter.
Total sales were up 5.7% excluding fuel, and down 4.0% including fuel.
'At this stage, the impact of Covid-19 remains uncertain,' Morrisons said
'The outlook for our sales is also uncertain, although we are adapting well to the new day-to-day circumstances, while being both proactive and reactive in taking new opportunities.'
'Day-to-day operations and challenges are currently very different from normal, and we are operating in a more volatile trading environment, which is costly.'
'In addition, many of the payroll, bonus, seasonal waste and markdown, distribution, community, and colleague and customer protection initiatives described above come at considerable cost.'
The company said, at this stage, its best estimate was that annual costs relating directly to Covid-19 were likely to be broadly offset by business rates cost saving.
'In addition, there are other current impacts on profit such as the temporary closure of our significant cafe business, and the considerably lower fuel sales,' it added.
'As these costs and profit impacts are more weighted to the first half of our financial year and the rates relief benefit more to the second half, we expect the net adverse impact on profit to be considerably more weighted to the first half.'
Morrisons reiterated that it was deferring a decision to pay a special dividend.