Britons increase shopping trips, trade down to navigate inflation - Tesco boss

LONDON (Reuters) - Britons are making more shopping trips but buying less and trading down to cheaper products to navigate soaring inflation, the boss of Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket group said on Friday.

"We are seeing higher frequency shopping trips, so there's an elevation in the number of shopping trips, we are seeing basket sizes coming down a little bit," CEO Ken Murphy told reporters after Tesco updated on first quarter trading.

He said the group was also seeing some early signs of customers trading down to cheaper products in areas of significant inflation, including bread, pasta and baked beans. An increased number of trips to Tesco each week enabled shoppers to buy what they needed on the day, helping to manage budgets.

Murphy noted that Tesco's convenience store business was also trading well in the crisis.

"We have seen our convenience business getting even stronger, it's performing really really well," he said.

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton)