Coles Group chief executive Steven Cain is expecting robust sales in the group’s supermarkets in the lead-up to Christmas as the large cities on the eastern seaboard return towards near normal in the next phase of the pandemic.

The company also outlined on Wednesday that about two thirds of the 1400 in-house butchers in its stores ended up taking redundancy packages after the company officially decided to scrap in-store butchers in favour of pre-packaged meat from early October.