Christmas comes early for supermarket premium own label lines
New figures on the grocery market show a particularly strong performance for premium own label ranges in the run-up to the festive period.
The figures from Kantar Wordpanel covering the 12 weeks to 4 December, reveal that shoppers are spending 13% more on these lines than they did last year against a backdrop of continued slow growth for supermarkets overall, where year-on-year sales increased by just 0.7%.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, explained: “Top-tier private label finds its way into 12% of shopping trips, with 88% of consumers now buying from these lines. In the past 12 weeks, 6.3% of own label purchases were from premium lines such as Tesco Finest and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference, well ahead of the 5.7% recorded last year. We’ve seen particularly impressive performances from Morrisons’ The Best, which saw sales increase by 35%, and Asda Extra Special which grew by 15%. Over Christmas it’s likely that premium lines will record their highest ever sales figures as even more shoppers trade up to treat their loved ones.”
According to Kantar’s figures, Aldi was the only retailer to record double-digit sales growth over the past 12 weeks with sales up 10% year-on-year. As a result, Aldi’s share of the grocery market has increased by 0.6 percentage points to 6.2%.
The next fastest-growing retailer was Iceland, with an 8.6% sales uplift to bring the grocer’s share of the market to 2.2%.
Other retailers growing sales over the past 12 weeks included Lidl, where sales rose by 5.7%, the Co-op, which had an increase of 2%, and Waitrose, where sales were up 1.1% year-on-year.
McKevitt added: “Tesco’s volumes sales are growing faster than its value sales, particularly in the meat and fresh produce categories. Its value sales remain ahead of the market, increasing by 1.6% year on year as the retailer grew its market share to 28.3%. Sales at Sainsbury’s fell by 0.6%, with market share down 0.2 percentage points to 16.5%, while Asda saw sales fall by 4.7% at a marginally slower rate than in recent months. Reflecting a smaller store estate, Morrisons’ overall sales declined by 1.4%, but the retailer saw particularly strong performance online – recording its highest ever sales in that channel.”
