British retailer Marks & Spencer is close to having both its food and general merchandise divisions “firing on all cylinders” and expects a better Christmas after poor clothing sales hit last holiday season, according to its food business head.

While the 130-year-old firm’s general merchandise (GM) division – clothing, footwear and homewares – has posted 12 consecutive quarters of declining sales at stores open over a year, its food business has delivered 19 straight quarters of like-for-like sales growth.

“This business hasn’t had foods and GM firing on all cylinders together for a long time.

“I think we’re very close to having a position where both the food and GM businesses are working positively,” Steve Rowe, executive director of food, told Reuters in an interview at the firm’s London headquarters.

“There’s a love affair between M&S and the consumer, and when you upset your lover, sometimes it takes longer than you think it’s going to take for them to forgive you,” said Rowe, a 25-year M&S veteran.

While the food business was continuing to win market share with a strategy to specialise more and focus on quality and innovation, he said there were also “really good positive signs” coming out of womenswear, its biggest clothing segment.

“I don’t think we’ll have a poor Christmas (in GM),” he said. “We all believe it is time to deliver.”

Under Marc Bolland, CEO since 2010, M&S has posted three straight years of profit decline despite spending £2.4 billion to address decades of underinvestment.

Analysts do, however, expect profit to rise significantly over the next three years.

M&S’s food business is outperforming the wider British grocery market – which is growing at its slowest rate for over a decade – and contributed over half of total group sales of £10.3 billion in the 2013-14 year.