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Morrisons, the UK's fourth-biggest supermarket chain's pre-tax profits, jumped nearly a third after 12 months of industry leading sales growth."2009 was a vintage year," said finance director Richard Pennycook. "We strongly outgrew the market for the second year in a row."

The firm was the fastest growing of the big four retailers over the key Christmas period and Pennycook said its sales were growing 2.5%, ahead of the market. Sales increased 6% to £15.4 billion in the year to 31 January.

Pennycook narrowly missed out on the CEO role following Marc Bolland's defection to Marks and Spencer. But he insisted this week that the challenges presented by his current role are sufficient to hold his interest. "I have got a big job and retail is a team sport and so I am happy with doing the job I am doing," he said.

Pennycook said the difficulties that dogged Morrison following its £3.35 billion acquisition of Safeway in 2004 were now a thing of the past. In January, Morrisons finished a four-year "optimisation" plan drawn up by Pennycook to rebuild profits.

"I am signing off the optimisation plan. It has run its course. It was devised at a time when we needed a recovery plan for the business," said Pennycook. "The optimisation plan has done really well for us. Now we've recovered the margin to somewhere respectable we won't be launching big set-piece plans."

The retailer is planning 60 new stores over the coming three years and it has earmarked £2.2 billion in capital expenditure and to enhance its fresh food offering. Pennycook said the supermarket chain is still "national" rather than "nationwide" and that has to change. “Our space ambitions for the future lay more in the South than elsewhere because that is where our strongest under-representation is in the country,” he explained.  "There are still seven million UK households that can't get to a Morrisons store, they're not within a 15-minute drive."