UK grocery sales remain strong despite price rises

The latest figures published by Kantar show take-home grocery sales fell by 3.8% over the 12 weeks to 28 November 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. However, sales remained strong compared with the pre-pandemic market, and the grocery spend was 7.0% higher than in the same period in 2019. Online grocery sales fell by 12.5%, compared to the same period in 2020 when there was the second lockdown. 
While all the retailers achieved growth compared with pre-pandemic in 2019, year-on-year grocery sales were down across the board. Tesco’s sales fell by 1.4%, but as it was a smaller drop than the total market, the retailer won 0.7 percentage points of share this period. Lidl and Aldi also made share gains, as they limited their annual sales decline to just 1.1%. Lidl hit a new record market share of 6.4%, while Aldi won 0.2 percentage points to move to 7.9%. Sales at Ocado fell by 2.4% year on year but have grown by 35.0% compared with two years ago. It boosted its market share from 1.7% in 2020 to 1.8% in the past 12 weeks. Sainsbury’s now holds a 15.4% share of the market, Asda 14.0% and Morrisons 10.0%. Waitrose’s market share was steady at 4.9%, while Co-op now stands at 6.1% and Iceland at 2.3%. Independent and symbol retailers saw sales fall by 10.5% but remain in growth compared with 2019.