U.K. food and online retailers are likely to emerge as winners from the difficult holiday reporting season, with the losers being clothing, jewelry, consumer electronics and home-related retailers such as Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS.LN), DSG International PLC (DSGI.LN) and Next PLC (NXT.LN). U.K. supermarket chain Asda Group Ltd. Wednesday reported strong performances in fresh food and its George clothing brand over the critical holiday season.

President and Chief Executive Andy Bond said the key holiday season was the retailer’s “best ever”, despite the sector having its worst Christmas in three years. Asda, the country’s second-biggest supermarket chain by sales, said it served a million more customers in the week before Christmas than a year earlier. Asda didn’t report specific holiday sales figures.

A day later, J Sainsbury PLC (SBRY.LN), the first of the three-listed U.K. supermarket chains to report, booked strong fiscal third-quarter sales following a good Christmas period, which was a welcome relief to besieged investors. Stripping out fuel, comparable sales from Sainsbury stores open at least a year, rose 3.7% in the 12 weeks ended Dec. 29 from a year earlier, slightly above analyst consensus of 3.6%, supported by promotional activity in the weeks leading up to Christmas. That compares with a 3.1% rise in the second-quarter of fiscal 2008 from a year ago.