Aldi US

An Aldi store

The discounters are continuing to grow in the UK market with Aldi and Lidl both achieving record grocery market shares for the 12 weeks ending 14 April.

In the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel, Aldi posted a record share of 3.4 per cent, after achieving its highest ever growth rate of 31.1 per cent, while Lidl now controls three per cent of the market.

It was also good news for upmarket retailer Waitrose which achieved its highest-ever market share of 4.9 per cent, up 0.4 percentage points from the same period last year,from a strong rate of growth at 12 per cent.

Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, believes that pressures on household budgets and the development of convenience stores is driving more and more consumers towards the discounters.

He explained: “Pressure on household budgets is undoubtedly driving some of the growth at the discounters, but messages about quality are starting to resonate.

'Aldi’s new ‘convenience’ store in Kilburn is a departure from its traditional edge-of-town offering and these types of changes are likely to appeal to a new and different group of shoppers which will bolster the performance of the discounters even further.”

Meanwhile, within the big four, Sainsbury’s delivered the strongest growth at 5.4 per cent, growing ahead of overall market growth of 3.6 per cent, and is the only ‘big four’ supermarket to increase its market share, which now stands at 16.9 per cent.And despite achieving growth of 0.3 per cent for the period, Morrisons market share of 11.5 per cent was down 0.4 percentage points from the same period last year.