The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel have revealed an increase in sales, suspected to be due to the Royal Wedding festivities and hot weather.
Results, published for the 12 weeks to 20th May 2018, have shown that the recent hot weather combined with the ‘Meghan Markle effect’ have sparked strong market growth – up 2.7% on last year.
Chris Hayward, consumer specialist at Kantar Worldpanel, commented: “The sun shone on the grocery market over the past month with record-breaking temperatures, a bank holiday weekend and Royal Wedding fever all contributing to a bumper period.
“The Friday before the day of the wedding and the FA Cup Final experienced a particularly noticeable spike in sales, with grocers clocking in £415 million over the 24 hours.”
The festivities and warm weather have encouraged shoppers to have barbeques and spend more on food products. Results have shown that over the past month, sales of burgers and sausages rose by 39% and 12% respectively.
Hayward added: “Morrisons performed particularly well over the past 12 weeks. Its sales growth of 2.9% is ahead of the overall market.
“The retailer has now celebrated 19 consecutive periods of sales growth and has held market share at 10.5%.”
Morrisons has also succeeded in attracting an additional 311,000 new shoppers through its doors.
Hayward said: “With year-on-year sales growth of 2.8%, Asda is also performing ahead of the grocery market. The retailer continues to prove popular with young families, while an increase in spend per trip – up £0.56 to £26.88 on average – has helped buoy sales. “
Over the past 12 weeks, Tesco experienced a sales increase of 2.2% and encouraged an extra 170,000 customers to its stores, despite dropping market share by 0.1 percentage points to 27.7%.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s first increase in promotional activity in three years helped boost sales by 1.0% year-on-year, though the retailer’s market share fell back by 0.2 percentage points.
Hayward continued: “Over the past 12 weeks Lidl was the only bricks and mortar retailer to experience double-digit sales growth – up 10.4%.”
Aldi also continues to perform well, with sales up 6.7%, its market share grew by 0.3 percentage points from 7.0% to 7.3%.
