Supermarket chain Safeway said it had successfully completed a year of transition despite seeing sales growth ease in recent months.

The group has reformatted about one hundred of its stores to win back customers under chief executive Carlos Criado-Perez.

In an unscheduled trading update, it said total sales rose by 4.5 per cent in the 12 weeks to March 30 the fourth quarter of its financial year.

Like-for-like growth, which excludes income from new stores, was 4.1 per cent, below the levels recorded in previous quarters.

Safeway said it was satisfied with the performance, which means like-for-like growth for the year as a whole slipped back to 4.9 per cent.

This is lower than both Tesco and Sainsbury's, which reported sharper rises in updates to the City last week.

A spokesman said the upheaval programme had an effect on performance through the disruption caused to stores while refurbishing work was carried out.

About 25 per cent of Safeway's store portfolio has been overhauled under the second part of Mr Criado-Perez's turnaround strategy at the chain.

Stores have been given a variety of new fresh food counters while dry cleaning and photo processing shops have also been introduced on some sites.

The spokesman added sales had also been hit by the delayed opening of four hypermarkets, which would have extended selling space by two per cent.

Four stores, in Glasgow, Rushden, Northants, Milton Keynes and Gamston, near Nottingham, were due to open in March but will now open in May or June.

The spokesman said the group had wanted to take more time to learn the lessons from its first hypermarket, in Plymstock, Devon, which opened before Christmas.

Safeway is due to report its full-year results on May 15 and analysts are expecting pre-tax profits of about £350m.