(Reuters) -Australia's Woolworths Group posted a 19% drop in its full-year underlying profit on Wednesday, while reporting a weak start to fiscal 2026 on the back of slower-than-expected sales growth in its biggest earner, Australian Food.

Woolworths said sales at the division grew 2.1% in the first eight weeks of the business year, lower than the Visible Alpha consensus forecast of 4.1% for the first six months.

The sales growth also lagged smaller peer Coles, which reported 4.9% growth in its supermarkets division for the first eight weeks of current fiscal on Tuesday.

Woolworths, the country's top supermarket chain, said its underlying net profit after tax was A$1.39 billion ($883.73 million) for the year ended June 29, compared with A$1.71 billion reported a year earlier, largely in line with a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of A$1.38 billion.

The company, which sells more than one-third of Australian groceries, declared a final dividend of 45 Australian cents per share, lower than 57 cents apiece declared last year.

($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Himanshi Akhand and Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)