Grocery market growth drops to lowest level in ten years
New figures released by Kantar Worldpanel have revealed that grocery market growth fell to 0.9% in the 12 weeks to 20 July. This is the lowest figure for ten years.
The research firm also revealed that its measure of inflation dropped for the tenth successive period and now stands at 0.4%.
Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Competitive pricing among the big grocers and deflation in the price of staple items such as vegetables, milk and bread has driven inflation to the lowest level since October 2006 when Kantar Worldpanel began this measure. As a result, market growth has fallen to 0.9% – the lowest figure for 10 years.”
Looking at individual retailers, Aldi’s 32.2% sales growth lifted its market share to 4.8%, a new record for the discount retailer. Similarly, Lidl sales grew by 19.5% which means it now accounts for a record 3.6% of the grocery market.
Among the big four supermarkets, both Asda and Sainsbury’s held onto their respective market shares of 17% and 16.6%. Meanwhile Tesco and Morrisons both recorded losses with sales for both retailers declining by 3.8% compared with this time last year. This meant that Morrisons’ market share dropped to 11% while Tesco’s fell to 28.9%.
Waitrose continued to resist pressure from the competition to achieve sales growth of 3.4%. This lifted its market share to 4.9%. Iceland posted a small drop in sales, its first since 2005, but retained its 2% market share.
