UK grocery sales surged as shoppers continue to stock up on premium products in the run-up to Christmas, numbers from Kantar showed on Tuesday.

UK grocery sales in the 12 weeks to December 1 rose 2.5% to £34.44 billion from £33.60 billion a year prior. Kantar also forecast that supermarket sales would exceed £13 billion over the four weeks of December, for the first time ever.

‘There are clear signs that shoppers are already stocking up their cupboards’, Kantar explained, with crackers and biscuits flying off the shelves at twice the rate of the previous month.

‘Many of us take the chance to treat ourselves at this time of year and retailers are rolling out seasonal product lines to help us celebrate in style. The proportion of spending on premium own label products reached 5% over the latest four weeks and we expect it to climb even higher in December to nearly 7%,’ Kantar analyst Fraser McKevitt said.

Grocery price inflation was ‘relatively stable’ at 2.6% for the final four weeks of the period, from 2.3% in the four weeks to November 3.

Kantar also reported that the cost of an average Christmas dinner for four has risen by 6.5% to £32.57, due to the price of turkey and vegetables. The price is unlikely to put off shoppers too much, however, with December 23 set to be the single busiest day for supermarkets this year, according to Kantar.

Shoppers are prioritising low pricing over multibuys in the face of inflation, Kantar said.

‘Sales on promotion reached 30% in November, the highest since Christmas last year. It’s retailer price cuts, often accessed through loyalty cards, that are really driving this. While multibuy promotions have stayed flat, spending on price cut offers has grown by 14%, worth £355 million more than last year. Shoppers are grabbing the chance to spend that little bit more than usual on Christmas specials, and champagne, wine and spirits saw the biggest levels of buying on deal,’ McKevitt said.

Kantar said Tesco PLC took its highest market share since December 2017, at 28.1%, up from 27.4% a year prior. Its sales grew by 5.2% during the 12 weeks.

Lidl was the fastest growing bricks-and-mortar grocer, with sales up by 6.6% as its market share increased by 0.3 percentage points to 7.7%. Footfall was up by nearly 10% year-on-year.

Online retailer Ocado saw its sales boosted by 8.7% over the period, outpacing the total online market, which grew by 3.6%. It took a 1.8% market share.

McKevitt added: ‘The number of different retailers we visit in the run-up to Christmas is higher than at other times during the year, including wider high street brands like M&S. Just under one in three households, at 32%, bought food, drink and other groceries to have at home from M&S during the 12 weeks to 1 December and looking at grocery sales alone, spending at M&S rose by 10.4%.’

J Sainsbury PLC sales increased by 4.7% as its market share improved to 15.9% from 15.6%.

Tesco shares were up 1.1% on Tuesday morning in London, while Sainsbury’s was up 0.2%. Ocado was down 3.0% and M&S fell 0.1%.

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