Grocery shrugs off recession as inflation falls
The latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, published today for the 12 weeks ending 6th September 2009 increasingly confirm the impression that “recession panic” is ebbing away as far as the grocery market is concerned.
This is not to imply that all sectors of the High Street will instantly return to pre-recession growth. Rather that food remains a manageable proportion of most household budgets by historical standards and, it could be argued, the grocery sector suffered from an over-reaction at the end of 2008 when Aldi posted year-on-year sales growth of 26% and Waitrose saw a sales decline.
Fast-forward to today and Waitrose is the top performer with a growth rate of 11.2% – the highest since August 2006. Admittedly this will be boosted by the stores acquired from the Co-operative / Somerfield combination but it is hardly a sign of a rush downmarket.
Growth for Aldi and Lidl continues to fall back from 2008 levels with Aldi growing ahead of the market at 8.0% and Lidl just keeping pace with the market growth of 5.2%.
Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons all continue to grow share and have added 1.1 share points between them. It is too early yet to assess the impact of Tesco’s Clubcard 2 within this 12 week period and the Tesco share continues under pressure.
