The latest survey from retail consultants Kantar Worldpanel highlighted continued strong growth in UK grocery sales, which rose 9.3% during the 12-weeks to 1 November.
Despite the increased number of regional restrictions coming into force, the most recent four-weeks sale data showed growth holding steady at 9.4%.
Growth rates peaked in Wales where the restrictions were tightest with sales up 15% in the month to 1 November, with shoppers increasing spending by an average of £10 during the week when the ‘firebreak’ came into force.
The following week saw online shopping in Wales hit its highest ever level, accounting for 16.2% of the market.
EARLY CHRISTMAS FOR RETAILERS
The early signs in England following lockdown on 5 November don’t suggest stockpiling of essentials but shoppers were out in force buying Christmas presents before shops closed. In the three days before lockdown, toy and entertainment stores took more than double their share of pre-Covid-19 footfall.
The prospect of spending more time at home over winter saw people preparing to make life indoors more cosy, if the sales of scented candles, pot pourri and essential oils are a reasonable indicator, as the category saw a 29% increase compared with last year.
MUM’S GONE TO ICELAND
Frozen food sales grew 14% in the last 12 weeks which followed a spike in demand for fridge freezers over the summer months. This benefited Iceland which grew market share to 2.3% from 2.1% last year, with overall sales growing 17.9% and the average basket size worth a staggering 44% more than a year-ago, the biggest increase of any retailer.
With many meat and fish counters closed due to the pandemic, butchers have seen 100,000 more visits from shoppers compared with last year and 2 million households have visited their local butcher over the past three-months.
A beneficiary of the shift to online shopping, Ocado (OCDO) was again the fastest growing retailer with sales up 36.1% increasing market share to 1.7%, while Waitrose also grew ahead of the market to take its share up to 5.1%, the first increase since 2017. Ocado’s shares have fallen around 15% since yesterday’s positive vaccine news.
SUPERMARKETS SWEEP
Morrisons (MRW) led the big four and expanded its share for the fifth consecutive month to 10.2%, helped by it’s premium own label brand The Best which saw a 42% sales increase.
Sainsbury’s (SBRY) sales increased by 7.6% and Asda increased sales by 5% while market leader Tesco (TSCO) maintained its share at 27% with growth of 9.1%.
The discounters had mixed fortunes with Lidl growing 12.5% and increasing its market share to 6.1% but Aldi seeing its share fall slightly to 7.8% after growth of only 6.6%.
