Home cooks keep Morrisons on the boil at £442m

Home cooking is "going through the roof", says Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips, and it is a boon to the fast-growing supermarket.

"People are having to make tough choices," he says. "They are making smart choices."

To him that means buying fresh ingredients from Morrisons, which is expanding hard into London and the South-east, areas where it feels it is under-represented.

Unlike Sainsbury's, Morrisons doesn't think a Jamie Oliver-style marketing push is needed. "We are not going to sign up a celebrity chef. That's not our style," said Philips.

Sales in the first half of the year are up 7.4% to £8.7 billion, which may explain why Morrisons shares are one of the few among the big caps to have risen this year.

Like-for-like sales are up a less dramatic 2.2%, but that's still likely to eclipse rivals. Profit is up 8% to £442 million.

Morrisons plans to move into online food retailing in 2013, to compete with Ocado et al. The group recently hired Simon Thompson, who joined from Apple, as managing director for food at Morrisons.com.

Most City analysts are bullish about the firm's prospects.

"Morrisons is a well run and strong company," said Clive Black of Shore Capital. "In transparently difficult times it is steering a good course."

For consumers, times remain tough. "We don't see any uptick for the time being," said Philips. "It's very tough out there."