The latest figures from Kantar show that take-home grocery figures fell by 0.4% during the 12 weeks to 16th May 2021, although sales remain stronger than they were before the pandemic.

Shoppers spent an additional £3.8 billion at the supermarket in the past three months compared with the same period in 2019.

As people start to re-enter the social sphere, consumers appear to be looking for greater convenience in their meal preparation. Sales of chilled ready meals rose by 20%, cooked poultry increased by 28% and sandwich fillings were up 12%.

According to Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight, Fraser McKevitt, a return to more normal habits has been reflected in grocery sales.

He said: “Many of us this time last year were eating all our meals at home and we bought extra food and drink as a result. Now we’re seeing take-home grocery sales dip versus 2020 as people are able to eat in restaurants, pubs and cafés and can pick up food on the go again, grabbing a sandwich, for example, while they’re out and about at the weekend. While not captured in these take-home figures, on-the-go grocery sales look set to be a significant driver of growth for supermarkets over the next few months.

“As the vaccine rollout moves full steam ahead, consumers are getting more confident venturing back out to stores. Shoppers made 58 million more visits to the supermarket this period than they did in May 2020.”

The proportion of supermarket sales made online – another hallmark of shopping habits last year – remains much higher than 2019 levels but fell back from 13.9% in April to 13.4% in the latest month. Convenience stores, both independents and smaller formats of the major chains, are seeing some of their market share gains unwind too. Collectively these smaller stores now account for 12.5% of sales, down from 14.9% in May 2020.

This May’s damp weather saw burger sales falling by 20% in the month year on year, although chilled dessert sales rose by 14%.