Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the M&S Interim Results. In a moment, Steve and then Eoin are going to go through the entrails of the half year. But what matters to me is that it is now four years since we embarked on this transformation program at M&S. And, I met the other day one of our distinguished alumni, somebody actually who you probably all know, and he made a very good remark to me. He said, "The trouble with M&S is it's a great British institution, but is it a business?" And I think that sort of sums it up. You know, our project is about turning a great institution into a great business, and there have been plenty doubters and cynics along the way. And I understand that, and probably I would have been one too.
But I hope you'll see from these results that we are very, very serious about the reshaping of the business. You know, I've never seen short-term profits as the most important measure of our success. It is quite nice to have some. Probably the really important thing from today in terms of results is that we've substantially strengthened the balance sheet with very strong cash flow, and that's investment and growth for the future. But the real test, and in a sense, the quiz for you guys, is look behind the label and answer these questions. What has happened to the perception of Quality, Style and Value in the clothing business? What's happened to the perception of Quality and Value in the Food Business?
What's happened to our Market Share in Food, not over one year and pandemic, but over two years, so comparing now to before the pandemic struck? What's happened to the percentage of full price sales in Clothing & Home? And what's happened to our market share, not of discounted sales, but full price sales in Clothing & Home, particularly Womenswear and Kidswear? Is our online growth now matching the relative decline in the store sales so that overall we're on the cusp of getting back to a growth business? What percentage of our space is in danger of becoming modernized and conforming? And perhaps more qualitatively, is the management team and the business structure unrecognizably different with real pace and energy and determination to change? Now, these are the questions that the board is asking, and I think they're the questions that you should answer.
And, meanwhile, it's quite nice to be making some money again. Thank you.
Good morning and welcome to the M&S half year results presentation. I hope you and your families are well. If you're watching the presentation on Wednesday the 10th of November, there will be a conference call for analysts and investors at 9:30 A.M. Details of this are on the results release. This morning's presentation is split into two parts. Firstly, Eoin Tonge, as Chief Financial Officer, will take you through the results for the half year. I will then talk in more detail about how our transformation has, along with some COVID bounce back, driven a strong performance. Four years ago, I spoke to you frankly about where we were. I set out a three-phase strategy that began with fixing the basics, which had been ignored for too long.
Now, there'll always be a list of things to sort out, as in any trading business, and I've always been clear that I will never overclaim on our performance. We have seen some tailwinds from the effects of COVID bounce back, as well as some headwinds from the well-documented turbulence in relation to supply chain issues. However, we have delivered a strong performance with, for the first time, underlying improvements in all main businesses. I'm out in some of our stores for today's presentation, and it's here you can see our progress. For example, our Hackney store first begun trading 85 years ago as a full line store. And in August, we reopened it as a renewed food store with a bigger, better, fresher offer. This includes options to help our customers shop more sustainably with fill your own on cupboard essentials to help reduce plastic and packaging use.
This is one of the many steps we're taking to become a net zero business, scope 3, by 2040 for our refocused sustainability action plan, Plan A. Overall, we've reported a strong financial result compared to two years ago. We generated double-digit revenue growth in food. Ocado Retail drove strong order growth despite tough comparatives to last year and made another solid contribution to group results. Clothing & Home has delivered double-digit full price sales growth, and online sales are up over 60% compared to two years ago. In addition, a focus on working capital and disciplined investment has resulted in healthy reduction in net debt. Underlying improvements are evident across the main businesses with gains in market share and customer perception. M&S Food is growing market share with improving quality and value perception. Ocado Retail has increased capacity by over 50% since the M&S investment.
In Clothing & Home, Style and Value perceptions have increased, and market share is now growing across the online and store channels. We have record online customer numbers and strong levels of retention illustrating the future potential of MS2 to accelerate our online growth. The store pipeline now includes over 20 full line stores and many new food stores, leaving us well-positioned to close legacy sites and move rapidly towards our goal of a modern fit for purpose estate that supports omni-channel retailing. The international business is rebounding, growing online sales despite dealing with the dual headwinds of lockdowns in some markets and E.U. border related costs. I'll share more detail on the transformation shortly. But before I do, I will take you through the numbers.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning to everyone. This time last year, I was presenting my first set of results as CFO, and what a year it has been for us all. Pleasingly, as these half-year results show, we are starting to see both the benefit of a bounce back after the challenges of COVID, and importantly, real underlying progression as a result of our transformation. This period has not been without its challenges, with parts of the business still in recovery mode. It is worth remembering that Clothing & Home stores were closed in the first week of the half, and are still down double digits on pre-pandemic levels.
Our Food Hospitality business was closed until mid-May, and along with our Food Travel Franchise business, continues to trade well below pre-pandemic levels. In that context, we are delighted with how the half has progressed. Now, before we dive in, an important point to note on how we are presenting today's results. Given the unprecedented nature of last year, throughout this presentation and in our press release this morning, all comparatives are given against financial year 2019-2020 unless stated otherwise, which we believe is a more meaningful measure of underlying performance. So, The Group Headlines. Group revenue was up 5% on 2019-2020, and the group delivered an adjusted profit before tax of GBP 269.4 million. It is worth noting that the result includes U.K. business rates relief of GBP 47.5 million.
Performance on cash continues to be strong as we focus on recovering our balance sheet with a further healthy reduction in net debt in the period. I'm going to take you through the results now in a little more detail. Starting with Food. Food sales were up over 10% on 2019-2020, which is a really strong result. It's worth digging into the detail a little bit more here. If we exclude the Hospitality & Franchise businesses, which continue to be adversely impacted, core business performance was very strong, with sales consistently up around 17% throughout the period, and in some core categories like frozen, grocery, and household, up 30%-40%. It is also worth noting that unlike our competitors, these sales numbers do not benefit from a direct online grocery presence. With these sales reported through Ocado Retail instead.
In addition, while footfall and transactions remain below pre-pandemic levels, encouragingly, total basket size was up over 30%. Operating profit increased over GBP 50 million and operating margin performance was strong. We should look at the drivers of this in more detail. Gross margin was down, reflecting the lower revenue from our higher margin hospitality business, as well as additional warehousing and freight charges. This was partly offset by the strong growth in core categories and the continuing cost-saving programs, including synergies from Ocado. Our store staffing costs improved, both due to the restructuring efficiencies we announced last year, as well as other ongoing programs. These were partly offset by pay inflation and ongoing COVID costs. The improvement in other store costs relates largely to government business rates relief and lower depreciation charges as legacy store modernizations reach the end of their economic lives.
In distribution and warehousing, increased costs reflect a number of items. Firstly, investments in our Milton Keynes ambient depot to support growth. Secondly, increased pay and incentives related to warehouses and haulage, which started to build towards the end of the period. Also, higher costs to serve from increased marksandspencer.com orders for hampers, wine and flowers, and finally, inefficiencies from EU border related processes related to serving Northern Ireland. So despite these headwinds, overall, this reflects a good performance. Turning now to the contribution from Ocado Retail. In this case, I'll talk to the results against last year as we did not own our investment for much of this period in 2019-2020. Last year clearly was an exceptional period for grocery online during the lockdowns, and therefore we are annualizing against this. This is reflected in the revenue performance.
Also, towards the end of the period, trading was impacted by the fire at the Erith CFC. However, these two impacts were offset by strong underlying growth in our capacity to just over 600,000 orders per week. The plan to ramp up capacity to drive growth remains very exciting. Encouragingly, M&S products continue to account for over 25% of the average Ocado basket. EBITDA was down, reflecting the revenue and cost impacts of the Erith fire, as well as expected normalization towards pre-pandemic basket size and shape of week. Exceptional items in the period reflect insurance receipts as well as exceptional costs from Erith. Further receipts are anticipated in the second half. Overall, the M&S group share of Ocado Retail profit after tax was GBP 28.1 million in the period.
Moving on to Clothing & Home. Sales were down 1% with growth reported in the second quarter. Overall, a strong online performance mitigated the lost revenue from stores. Importantly, full price sales grew by a very encouraging 17.3% as customers responded to better product in a period where we ran fewer promotions and reduced stock into sale. Our store business, which was closed in week one, recovered throughout the period but remained significantly down. City centers and high streets continued to create a drag on sales with a better performance from retail parks, which were flat compared to 2019-2020. Average footfall and transactions continued to be materially behind pre-pandemic levels, but basket size was up, partly compensating for this.
The metrics in our online business were strong on both a one and two-year basis. Traffic increased overall, with traffic to our app up over 200% on 2019-2020, following the relaunch of Sparks last year. All this helping to drive the 60% growth in active customers over two years. As we anticipated, returns rates have started to normalize towards pre-pandemic levels, but will remain around 3 percentage points lower due to continuing trends in customer behavior and product mix. This resulted in a good overall performance for the online channel. In total, Clothing & Home generated an operating profit well ahead of 2019-2020 levels. At a headline view, online operating profit margins stayed strong at around 10%, with stores also delivering a 10% operating margin.
Going into more detail, you will see that gross profit was up as a result of the strong full price trading and lower stock into sale, which more than offset cost headwinds of adverse currency and additional freight costs seen over two years. It's a similar story to the food business in both store staffing and other store costs. In store staffing, the improvement was driven by both the restructuring efficiencies from last year as well as ongoing efficiency programs. These more than offset pay inflation. In other store costs, the movement largely relates to government business rates relief and lower depreciation charges as legacy store modernizations reach the end of their economic lives. Within distribution and warehousing, we see the impact of costs to serve online demand, as well as increased pay and incentives relating to haulage.
And finally, in central costs, Investments in Technology, Data, and Digital Initiatives, as well as higher pay-per-click marketing activity to drive online growth, were partly offset by lower depreciation of technology assets. And, finally to International. Performance reflected disruption and complexity arising from the current EU border processes and food supply chains, predominantly in the Republic of Ireland, and the continued impact of COVID on Asian markets, in particular in India in the first quarter. Clothing & Home revenue recovered to pre-pandemic levels, driven by strong online growth. While performance in India was severely impacted in the first quarter, recovery has been stronger than anticipated in the second quarter. Similarly, in owned European markets, while trading restrictions remained in place at the start of the period, sales performance upon reopening has been strong.
In our food business, EU border complexities have heavily restricted our ability to provide a chilled catalog. This has resulted in significant costs and complexity to operate in Ireland, which has impacted these numbers. In addition, it has led to a review of our business model in the Czech Republic and a restructuring of operations in France. Overall, operating profit was down, driven principally by the cost of the current EU border processes and tariffs. Gross profit declined due to those tariffs, as well as due to additional waste from inefficiencies in EU border processes, partly offset by the online growth. In-store staffing costs, the deterioration in leverage of the fixed and semi-fixed cost base due to revenue reduction was only partly mitigated by efficiency savings from the retail restructuring announced in the Republic of Ireland last year.
The movement in other store costs reflects government support in owned markets and rent concessions in India. Distribution costs increased significantly as a result of EU border-related processes, as well as from the growth of online sales. Central costs reflect the higher marketing costs associated with online sales. Bringing all that together for the group. As discussed, when compared to 2019-2020, profit growth in Food, Ocado Retail and Clothing & Home offset the decline in international profit. M&S Bank contribution declined, principally as a result of a significant decrease in income from credit card and travel money sales compared with two years ago. Net finance costs were level. Within this, a lower pension credit reflecting the lower pension surplus compared to 2019-2020 offset a reduction in the net interest payable on lease liabilities.
Overall, the group delivered GBP 269.4 million adjusted profit before tax. Adjusting items in the period were GBP 82 million, which I will cover next. That generated a healthy statutory profit before tax of GBP 187.3 million. Within adjusting items, the store estate charges reflect the impacts of the store rotation program in the period. The Ocado intangibles related charge increased in the period, reflecting deferred tax charges relating to the substantive enactment of the increase in the U.K. corporation tax rate. Adjusting items also reflect charges relating to the restructure of our European operations. Turning to cash flow since the start of the year. Overall, we had very good cash generation in the period, resulting in a further reduction of our net debt. This firstly was a result of EBITDA, the drivers of which I've already discussed.
In working capital, strong trading and the timing of Clothing & Home stock intake in advance of the peak Christmas period has resulted in trade payables increasing ahead of stock, leading to a benefit in the period. In CapEx, property maintenance spend normalized, and we continue to invest in the transformation. Major investments in the period have included spend on nine new stores, seven food renewals, and the expansion of the Bradford distribution center.
The adjusting items cash outflows largely relate to the organizational restructuring costs in the Republic of Ireland from last year. There are of course, other ups and downs, but overall, a further financial net debt reduction of over GBP 280 million in the period has resulted in a very strong cash position at period end. It is worth noting that our lease obligations also reduced. We continue to do a lot of work on our leases and further color on the breakdown of our lease obligations is included as an appendix slide on the website.
Now, turning to the Outlook. Pleasingly, trading for the first few weeks of the second half has remained consistent with trends reported in the second quarter. However, while we are encouraged by our strong performance in the first half and in recent trading, there are macro pressures now affecting all our core businesses, including labor shortages, COVID disruption in factories, and continued EU border challenges. These will all lead to further cost pressures in the second half of the year. Consumer confidence also remains a little uncertain given planned increases in taxes and current pressures in household bills, such as energy and petrol prices.
However, given the underlying progression, we believe the business is well-positioned to deal with most of these challenges as we head into our important peak period. Capital investment for the group won't be at pre-pandemic levels yet, as some planned transformation investments will now fall into the next financial year. Our central case is therefore that we will generate an increased profit before tax and adjusting items compared to our previous guidance. We also expect a stronger reduction in net debt than previously anticipated. As I said before, our capital allocation model remains unchanged. The priority is to invest in the transformation of the business and the recovery of balance sheet metrics consistent with investment grade.
As we outlined in May, we will continue to assess the reintroduction of dividend payments, but in the context of our capital allocation model, this remains unlikely in the current year, despite the stronger than expected cash performance. With that, I will now hand you back to Steve, who's going to talk more about our progression.
Thank you, Eoin. As I said earlier, the management action taken to accelerate change means we feel we've passed an inflection point. We've moved into the next phase of the transformation, shaping the M&S of the future and our path to growth. As a result of this, we now have a repositioned M&S Food business delivering profit and share growth. A profitable online grocery business through our investment in Ocado Retail, which is set for rapid capacity expansion. A reshaped Clothing & Home business with better product driving improved style and value for money metrics. MS2 delivering strong online growth. An acceleration of the store rotation program to build a modern store estate fit for the future. International focused on growth through strong trading partnerships and a multi-platform online business with global reach.
Much of our work over the past three years in food has been about protecting the magic of our unique product development and quality credentials while broadening appeal. We've refocused development on mainstream ranges which appeal to families. For example, improving and simplifying choice in core product categories such as Pasta, Ready Meals, and Bakery, and expanding in importantly and previously underserved areas such as frozen. We've done this while maintaining investment in development of product for special occasions and events where we know we have a strong market position. A great example of this is our Light Up Gin Globe, which has grown to a brand worth tens of millions pounds. You can see the results on the slide with growth in core everyday categories and encouraging core basket metrics despite the ending of restrictions.
On multiple levels, the data points to customers completing more of their shop with M&S, which has been key to our strategy. We've also reduced promotions, sharpened our tiering, and improved our everyday price credentials while protecting our quality differentiator. This has driven an improvement in price perception which are ahead of the market. You can see this in our Remarksable range, where we offer high-quality everyday staples at really competitive prices, which retain the M&S difference. For example, bread being vitamin D enriched. It's not just about everyday staples. By expanding our iconic dining program in three clear tiers from date night at GBP 10 to families at GBP 15 and special occasion events from GBP 15 to 20, we've broadened appeal and improved profitability. We've been evolving our renewal store formats to build bigger, better, and fresher food halls, including here in our Hackney store.
Renewal enables us to offer greater choice in core categories such as grocery, produce, and frozen in a format which we think is really distinctive, giving customers an easy as well as inspiring shop in a store which is operationally more efficient. The first half alone, the format has been implemented across 14 new or renewed stores and we expanded into hospitality, opening two renewal cafes in the period. Modernizing the end-to-end operation has always been core to the food strategy. It's never been more important to have an operationally efficient supply chain capable of delivering multi-year cost savings to underpin the top-line growth. The Vangarde store process improvements have now been implemented across 75% of the estate and the changes mean that many more of our stores are free of backstage stock and ready to trade on opening.
New forecasting, Ordering, Allocation, Space Planning systems will start to be rolled out towards year-end, allowing us to be much more flexible in cataloging and reducing waste. With our distribution partners, we're also working on plans to create a Streamlines, Modern, Automated Network, reducing the long-term cost to serve the business. As has been widely reported, there are growing issues of Driver, Warehouse, and Supplier Labor Shortages, creating additional pressures for all retailers, including M&S. We aren't just accepting the higher costs which come with increased pay rates and retention bonuses. We're also increasing Truck, Cage, and Trade Fill Volume and resetting delivery schedules and depot picking processes to help manage the pressures. Because of our concentrated supply base and strong working relationships with our logistics partners, Gist, we believe the food business is comparatively well-placed for these challenges.
Our food business is all the more encouraging, given our online offer is almost wholly delivered through Ocado Retail. There has been a step change in the online market, which appears to be stabilizing at around 12% of the grocery sales, compared with 7% pre-pandemic. Within this context, with Erith now reopen and three new CFCs already open this year, we'll shortly have increased peak day capacity by over 50% since the M&S investment. We therefore have a fantastic opportunity to drive Rapid, Sustainable Growth through Ocado's strong service and extensive range, underpinned by the M&S brand. In half one alone, M&S product generated sales of close to GBP 300 million on ocado.com, and is consistently over 25% of the basket.
We do expect the normalization of basket economics to continue and ORL, like all retailers, will see cost pressure in the remainder of the financial year. We're very pleased by the growth opportunity Ocado Retail has presented, and the synergies we've been able to generate within M&S Food. While the pandemic created tremendous upheaval for the Clothing & Home business, it hastened trends we were already responding to and was a catalyst for us to go further and faster in our transformation. In the first half, double-digit growth in full price sales helped to deliver a sharp rebound in Clothing & Home results. Even more encouragingly, growth from online offset the headwinds from lower store sales, and we've grown market share in both channels. At the heart of this improvement has been the re-engineering of the product engine.
We kick-started this last year by putting 1,300 colleagues through a training academy in efficient buying and merchandising. We armed the team with new tools enabling more accurate ranking and planning of range, and made further improvements in Product, Fit, and Finish. Alongside this, we've upgraded product display in store and online with initiatives such as The Edit, which creates a more inspiring sales-driving environment and brings outfits together rather than by department. Focusing the buyer on fewer lines has enabled us to increase the line item rate of sale in core areas such as women's denim, where sales per option are up by over 50% as we've built deeper on a third fewer options. We made the most of our scale by moving into growth categories such as athleisure through Goodmove, where we are now the number one full price women's brand.
We're growing kids daywear and home, where Apothecary is now a GBP 20 million brand. Overall, we're confident that customers are seeing better products and our style perception is improving on the back of the improvements we made. Many retailers have operated with less stock this year against the backdrop of recovering demand. At the period end, we had three weeks less stock cover than prior to the pandemic. We've learned to operate effectively with lower stock levels and have eliminated nine weeks from the women's [audio distortion] path, resulting in orders being placed closer to the date of sale. This has enabled us to drive efficiencies and be more agile and responsive to customer demand and trends. At the same time, we've shifted rapidly to a full price trading stance.
All of our friends and family mass promotions have been removed with a focus on trusted everyday value, which retains the M&S quality point of difference. This has helped lead to 50% less stock being put into the summer sale. Despite fewer promotions and less sale stock, our value perception has improved. At the end of the half, our clothing business led the market according to YouGov. We're really encouraged by this, as it evidences a positive difference customers can see in our products and ranges. A year ago we created MS2, bringing together the online digital and data teams to draw on our own customer data and Sparks loyalty program to personalize selling and improve our online offer.
We can see that MS2 is beginning to prove the power of our omnichannel offer, matching the speed and flexibility of pure play competitors with our store base for click and collect, returns, and rapid fulfillment. We have driven continued improvement in website performance and usability with mobile now accounting for about 50% of orders. Since relaunching Sparks as a digital loyalty program last year, membership has grown to 13 million and has helped to drive rapid adoption of the M&S app. The app now has over 3 million active users and just under half of all orders made on mobiles are generated through it. Combining Sparks and the app user base creates powerful advantages for our online marketing, and means we can offer personalized benefits linked to our omnichannel offer, such as bra fit appointments, Scan & Shop in food, and easy online collection and returns.
Through MS2 initiatives, we've driven strong growth in active online customers. This has been the driving force behind the 60% sales growth. Online participation has grown to 34% of total Clothing & Home sales against our longer term target of 40%. With a large customer base of over 20 million, we have a real opportunity to drive sales through increased frequency and spend. We are also starting to exploit the advantage of being omnichannel to improve service, learning from our experience of fulfilling customer orders from store stock during the pandemic. Over the past few years, we've doubled our online fulfillment capacity. We've invested in Castle Donington, expanded our Bradford distribution center, and grown our in-store fulfillment program.
In the first half, we built on this by updating our systems at pace to ensure that wherever possible, a click and collect order can be filled from stock which is already in the customer's store of collection. This accounted for around 9% of all click and collect orders in the period, and we plan to expand this to around 20%, paving the way for same-day collection and delivery. Last year, I spoke to you about our plans to broaden the reach of the business through the M&S brand platform. We're now trading with over 30 partners online, and this ranges from exclusive collaboration with Ghost for dresses to school shoes with Clarks to complement our strong position in school uniforms. It's early days, but the initial results are encouraging.
Brands were 3.5% of our sales mix in the first half, and typical online baskets, which include brands, having almost twice the average order value of those without. To complement our brand strategy, in January, we acquired the Jaeger brand in stock. We've been able to relaunch Jaeger in just nine months as an inclusive, modern British brand. Our approach is digital first. We've supplemented this with selected store presence, including here in Stratford. We believe we can rebuild this iconic brand by bringing all of the advantages of the M&S customer base, the infrastructure and platform through the business, creating value for customers and shareholders alike. At the year-end, we set out our goal of achieving a modernized full-line estate of around 180 stores through accelerated store rotation.
Rotation means closing in at least 110 locations and relocating to either a new full line or food-only store, and in many cases, consolidating multiple stores into one. There has rarely been a better time to acquire new space, and we now have around 20 full-line stores, including a further six former Debenhams stores in the pipeline, such as the new one we recently reopened in Leamington and a site in Stevenage where work is already underway. New stores will incorporate the food renewal format, a new approach to Clothing & Home decor and display, and a digital store initiative such as rapid click and collect and returns. Store rotation is critical as it allows us to break the paradox of short-term profit considerations and lease exit costs, which previously slowed the pace of change.
This is because we can generate strong paybacks on new stores with short lease lengths. We've been able to recapture around 30% of sales from closed stores in nearby stores or online and have generated encouraging early results from new retail park locations such as Nottingham Giltbrook, Sears Solihull and Maidstone Eclipse. In Leamington Spa, we've recently consolidated two units into one by closing a clothing site in the Royal Priors shopping center and Warwick simply food, and then extending a new food site at Leamington Shopping Park into the former Debenhams next door to create a new prime store. The incremental cash contribution, net of closure costs, is expected to generate payback on the net capital invested of under four years.
We're able to largely fund the legacy and closure costs of this program through releasing cash from redevelopment projects such as Marble Arch, which we announced early this year with around 20 potential projects now under consideration. Wherever possible, we will accelerate our plans to create a modern store estate which is fit for an omnichannel future. Our objective in international is to create a growing business through a limited number of strong trading partnerships and global online growth. We saw a solid rebound in the first half despite lockdowns, particularly in the Asian markets such as India, and the EU border costs we're incurring following Brexit. Online sales have more than doubled since 2019-2020, and despite strong comparatives, growth was even up 29% on last year in the first half.
This growth has been driven by very strong performances in markets with a store presence such as India and Ireland, coupled with rapid scaling on marketplaces. As in the U.K., we are building omnichannel capabilities and driving growth through the M&S app in markets such as India. To improve service and support online fulfillment, we'll also open a hub in 2022. We've also continued to modernize the store estate with new stores in Singapore and Yas Mall in Dubai, offering a renewed format in food for international markets. To improve partner service, we've also opened a U.K. hub for international franchise shipments, enabling stock to bypass the U.K. network, increasing speed to market and newness of stock. Following Brexit, we have, as previously guided, seen substantial headwinds in the form of reduced availability at our food operations in the Republic of Ireland and substantial administration costs.
We're working to mitigate these through restructuring the cost base and a planned step up in local sourcing. By going further and faster in our transformation over the past 18 months, we are coming out of the pandemic period in a very different shape. This reflects the strength of the leadership team who have driven transformative change at a pace and the hard work of all of my colleagues. We delivered strong revenue growth in Food with growing market share and continued strong quality and value perceptions. Ocado Retail has increased capacity by over 50% since the M&S investment and is set for further rapid capacity growth. Combining M&S Food with Ocado's strong service and the extensive range is really bringing the best together with M&S product consistently over 25% of the basket.
The steps taken to improve products and reengineer the product engine in Clothing & Home has driven improving style and value perceptions, increasing full price sales, and growing market share. MS2 is beginning to prove the power of our omnichannel strategy with record online customer numbers and strong levels of retention, driving double-digit online sales growth. We've made good progress on rotating the store estate and will accelerate the plan wherever possible to create a modern store estate which is fit for an omnichannel future. We're driving substantial international online growth alongside a group of strong trading partnerships despite the headwinds and strong comparatives. It's early days, but the trading in the first four weeks of the second half has been encouraging and consistent with growth reported in quarter two.
We go into peak conscious of the substantial uncertainties, but confident that we are facing into them from a strengthened position. In Food, Christmas food to order is ahead of plan, and we've made our ranges simpler in terms of tiering, so they're easier to shop. We've backed our key product lines with big buys and are offering even better value. In Clothing & Home, the changes we've made in supply chain mean we've more than doubled peak capacity at our Castle Donington site. We've repurposed space elsewhere to ensure dedicated fulfillment and capacity for our third-party guest brands. Across Food and Clothing & Home, we've made improvements to our gifting range and merchandising, and our product ranges are the best I've seen. I've always said that we will never overclaim our progress, and you've seen that today.
We've called out the tailwinds and been upfront that it isn't always simple to unpack the numbers. It is clear that the underlying performance across all of the main businesses is improving. We're gaining market share. Customer perceptions for value, quality and style are improving and, in some cases, market leading. For the first time, when I look under the bonnet, our main businesses are in a large part firing on all cylinders. The hard yards of driving long-term change are beginning to be borne out in our performance.