Grocery market returns to marginal growth
The UK grocery market returned to marginal growth of 0.1% in the 12 weeks to 7 December despite falling prices.
According to figures released by Kantar Worldpanel, the increase was due to shoppers putting slightly more in their baskets compared with the same time last year.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Britain’s supermarket price war is ramping up ahead of the all-important Christmas period. Retailers are selling more items on promotion, leading to like-for-like prices falling by 0.7% compared with this time last year. Cheaper groceries are an early Christmas present for shoppers, saving them £182 million in the past 12 weeks alone but this puts pressure on the supermarkets. We expect grocery deflation to continue well into 2015 as the price war rumbles on.”
At the discount end of the market Aldi and Lidl reached a record combined market share in the period with 8.6% of the market. Aldi recorded the fastest growing sales of any retailer at 22.3% followed closely behind by Lidl with 18.3% sales growth.
Asda’s sales dipped by 1% taking its share down to 16.7% although it did record the best performance among the big four supermarkets. Tesco’s sales slowed by 2.7%, its best result since June, to take its share of the market to 29.1%. Meanwhile, sales at Sainsbury’s dipped 1.8% and Morrisons’ sales fell by 3.2% to take their respective shares to 16.5% and 11.2%.
Waitrose grew its sales by 6% to take its share of the market to 5%.
