Grocery sales rise 5.8 per cent
Sales at grocery multiples have increased 5.8 per cent YoY in the latest 12 weeks with food inflation continuing to drive all growth in this sector.
Nielsen’s monthly Total Till reveals that the first week of September is looking more positive for supermarkets as “Back to School”
and other promotions started to kick in. Due to aggressive pricing of general merchandise value growth is only 1.3% though sales are looking more encouraging in clothing, and all value retailers continue to do well.
Mike Watkins, Senior Retailer Services Manager said “With 15% of GB household now shopping online and accounting for 3% of all food and drink spend, we can expect shoppers to turn to online retailers as another way of managing budgets.There are no travel costs, it makes good use of online coupons and promotional offers with minimum hassle and consumers are taking advantage of recently introduced free or reduced delivery charges”
Category performances are varying widely as the table below shows, with bakery and cakes showing 11% value growth, driven solely from inflation, which can be compared to soft drinks where poor sales were caused by the unseasonable weather in August. Household categories are struggling at only 1.7% value growth as consumers continue to tighten their belts.
Watkins continued “Asda and Morrisons continue to outperform the market and Tesco look likely to benefit from their recent price and promotions initiatives, building momentum for the next few weeks. The run up to the critical Christmas period this year will be very interesting indeed”
