Supermarket sales are continuing to grow despite the sluggish start to the British summer.
The latest Kantar figures, for the 12 weeks to 16 June, show supermarket sales growing 1.4 per cent. That represents a third straight year of consecutive growth for the category.
The figures are perhaps surprising given the comparison with last year, when a long, hot summer combined with the men’s football World Cup to drive up sales.
Instead, while summer favourites such as ice cream, beer and burgers have seen disappointing sales, consumers have instead spent more on comfort foods such as soup.
Among the retailers, the discounters are continuing their irresistible rise, with Aldi’s share hitting 7.9 per cent on the back of 9.3 per cent sales growth. Lidl has also seen 7.5 per cent sales growth, which has helped it to a 5.7 per cent share.
Other standout performers this quarter included the Co-op and Ocado, with the former boosting its share to 6.2 per cent and the latter seeing 11.3 per cent sales growth.
“Co-op is continuing to enjoy success in London and the south, where new store openings have helped make the region its largest area of growth, said Kantar head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt. “The convenience retailer already boasts the highest shopper frequency in the market as customers regularly pop in for smaller baskets and this has increased even further in the latest period: the average shopper stopped by 22 times over the course of 12 weeks.”
For Ocado, only three per cent of shoppers currently buy from the retailer, but McKevitt predicted it will boost that figure when it begins stocking M&S products next year.
Elsewhere sales were largely flat at Tesco and Asda, while Sainsbury’s fell 0.6 per cent. Sainsbury’s decline was at least only half of the figure it registered last month.
