Grocery market falls into decline for first time in 20 years
The UK grocery market has fallen into decline for the first time in 20 years according to latest figures released by Kantar Wordpanel.
The figures show that sales were down 0.2% in the 12 weeks ending 9 November compared with the same period last year.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “The declining grocery market will be of concern to retailers as they gear up for the key Christmas trading season.
“The fight for a bigger share of sales has ignited a price war which means an average basket of everyday goods such as milk, bread and vegetables now costs 0.4% less than it did this time last year. This is bad news for retailers, but good news for shoppers with price deflation forecast to continue well into 2015.”
Looking at the individual retailers, Aldi continued to benefit from the disruption within the grocery market as its sales rose by 25.5% year-on-year to take its market share to record high of 4.9%. Lidl also performed strongly with a 16.8% sales increase bringing its market share to 3.5%.
At the other end of the market, Waitrose grew its sales by 5.6% to take its share to 5.1%.
Asda recorded the best performance of the big four supermarkets. While its sales fell in line with the overall market, its share held steady at 17.2%. At Sainsbury’s sales declined by 2.5% which meant its market share dropped to 16.4%. Morrisons saw its sales fall by 3.3% to take its share to 11.1%. Tesco sales declined by 3.7% to take its market share to 28.7%.
