16th Oct 2018 09:02
LONDON (Alliance News) - Kantar Worldpanel on Tuesday said shoppers have returned to seasonal favourites as supermarket spending cooled off.
The most popular products were whole chickens, roasting joints and Yorkshire puddings with shoppers spending GBP51 million, GBP62 million and GBP4 million on these products, respectively, in September alone.
Kantar said overall grocery sales grew 3.2% year-on-year in the 12 weeks to October 7, demonstrating a slight slowdown from the highs reached during 2018's hot summer.
Tesco PLC experienced a sales increase of 0.9% in the 12 week period, beating J Sainsbury PLC, which grew sales by 0.6%. Tesco's market share declined by 0.6 percentage points to 27.4%, while Sainsbury's market share was also down by 0.4 percentage points to 15.4%.
"Despite widespread interest in the September launch of its discounter concept, Jack's, the small number of stores planned means it won't impact on Tesco's market share without a significant expansion," said Head Of Retail & Consumer Insight Fraser McKevitt.
Low-price competitors Aldi and Lidl were among the best performers over the period, with sales up 15.1% and 10%, respectively.
Aldi's sales growth was boosted by its fresh and chilled aisles, with sales of dairy products up 24% and fresh poultry up 29% compared with last year.
Meanwhile, Lidl attracted 5% more shoppers through its doors year-on-year and persuaded visitors to spend an extra 55 pence per trip.
Ocado Group PLC and Co-op was slightly behind with sales growth of 7.5% and 7.0%, respectively.
"An additional 265,000 households visited Co-op over the past 12 weeks," said McKevitt. "They were particularly drawn to its own-label lines, buying 10% more of these ranges than this time last year."
Iceland sales were up by 4.8%, Asda and WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC both grew sales by 2.4% and Waitrose sales rose by 0.1%.
Asda, which is in the process of merging with rival Sainsbury, continued to focus on its own-label lines, which boosted sales increase both online and in store. In contrast, Morrisons generated growth by selling more branded items.
In terms of market share, Aldi increased its share by 0.8 percentage points in the 12 week period to 7.6%, with Lidl's rising to 5.6% from 5.2%.
Waitrose market share dipped slightly to 5.2% from 5.3%, Asda also fell to 15.3% from 15.5%, Co-op was up by 0.2 percentage point to 6.4% and Iceland and Morrison's remained unchanged at 2.1% and 10.3%, respectively.
Grocery inflation for the period was 2.0%, Kantar said, with prices rising since the start of 2017. The fastest growing markets, it said, are butter, sparkling wine and canned colas.
Looking ahead, Kantar said some families seem to start preparing for the festive season as 8% of households bought mince pies last month, spending a total of GBP4 million.
Tesco shares were trading 2.9% lower early Tuesday, while Sainsbury's shares were down 0.4%.
Meanwhile, Morrisons shares were up 0.2% and Ocado shares were up 3.7%, the best performer in the FTSE 100 index.
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