Last month Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket, stopped selling 12 lines of Hovis products after the brand's owner, Premier Foods, raised prices due to wheat costs,
which jumped more than 50p between July and September.

"We think we'll resolve this in the coming weeks", said Premier's Chief Executive, Robert Schofield.

Tesco continues to stock seven of the most popular Hovis products and Premier continues to hope that the other 12 lines will be reinstated.

Premier's sales fell to £606 million in the third quarter-by about 4.2 per cent, while its volumes fell 1.6 per cent. The products suffering the most were its non-branded ones, sales in which fell by 10.4 per cent.

Adding to this picture is the £1.37 billion net debt of the company.