Britain’s grocery sector has now enjoyed two years of continuous growth according to the latest grocery market share figures from Kantar.
Combined supermarket sales have risen for 25 consecutive periods and now stand at 2.1 per cent compared with this time last year. A decline was last recorded in June 2016.
In the past quarter, to 17 June 2018, Morrisons was again the fastest-growing big four retailer, posting a sales increase of 1.9 per cent, narrowly behind the overall market.
More than a quarter of a million new customers helped Asda increase sales by 1.8 per cent and the supermarket’s run of 16 consecutive periods of growth is the longest the retailer has achieved since March 2014.
In contrast, Sainsbury’s sales fell by 0.2 per cent, with the supermarket chain’s market share falling by 0.4 percentage points to 15.6 per cent.
The grocer sold an extra £60 million of goods on promotion this year and attracted 159,000 new customers, but this was not enough to prevent a marginal drop in sales, despite a strong online performance.
At the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco, sales grew by 1.4 per cent, with the strongest performance coming at its Express convenience stores.
Tesco’s market share decreased, however – to 27.7 per cent from 27.9 per cent a year ago.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “After a couple of difficult years for the supermarkets this sustained period of growth is welcome news.
“The latest figures largely pre-date the soaring temperatures and new-found optimism for England’s World Cup chances but with the nation spending over half a billion more in supermarkets this period compared with last year, it suggests that summer has already arrived for many.”
Commenting on Morrisons’ strong performance, he added: “Consumers have responded very well to Morrisons’ wonky fruit and vegetable lines – these have more than tripled in sales and now feature in 12 per cent of baskets, helping the retailer’s cheapest tier of own label products grow by a remarkable one per cent.”
Including online retailers, Ocado was the fastest growing UK supermarket in the 12 weeks to 17 June, with overseas deals boosting the company’s share price and nudging its grocery market share up 0.1 per cent.
Lidl was the only bricks-and-mortar retailer to experience double-digital growth, with sales up 10 per cent, and as a major sponsor of England’s World Cup squad it will be hoping to see the team’s success so far translate into even higher growth in July.
The retailer’s growing range of branded goods are already up 33 per cent in sales and Kantar believes they could help attract an increasingly diverse range of customers through the door.
Despite Lidl’s impressive growth, it was Aldi that edged up to a new record market share of 7.4 per cent thanks to sales growth of 8.2 per cent.
