Grocery price inflation slowed to 11.5% in the 12 weeks to September 3, new figures from Kantar show today.
This marks the lowest level of grocery price inflation since September of last year and is down from a rate of 12.8% in the 12 weeks to August 6.
But it remains much higher than the general rate of inflation which stood at 6.3% in August, recent CSO figures show.
Today’s Kantar figures show that take-home grocery sales in Ireland increased by 7.9% in the four weeks to September 3 as the average price per pack increased by 8.8%.
They also reveal that shoppers visited stores more often this month making one additional trip compared to the previous month – but consumers bought on average one item less per month.
Emer Healy, Business Development Director at Kantar, said the slowdown in grocery inflation is welcome news for consumers.
“This is the fourth month in a row that there has been a drop, down 1.3 percentage points compared to last month, which is encouraging for both shoppers and retailers,” Ms Healy said.
“Although the rate of inflation is still relatively high, it is the lowest level we have seen in the last 12 months, and we expect it to continue to fall over the coming months,” she added.
Kantar noted today that sales of own label products were up 11.9% in the latest 12 weeks, more than double the sales growth of brands at 5%.
Value own label ranges had the strongest growth, up 17.8%, with shoppers spending an additional €10.3m year-on-year as they look to save money at the tills.
Own label value share hit 47.9%, while brands hold a value share of 46.6%, it added.
As children returned to school and packed lunches, Kantar noted that shoppers spent an additional €7.4m on biscuits, €1m on breakfast cereals, €2.2m on cheese and €947,000 on bread during the period under review.
Meanwhile, today’s figures also show that Dunnes, Tesco and Lidl all grew ahead of the total market in terms of value this month.
Dunnes holds 23% of the market with growth of 11.1% year-on-year. The retailer saw an increase of new shoppers, up 3 percentage points year-on-year, and the strongest boost in new shoppers out of all the retailers.
Tesco holds 22.6% of the market with growth of 11.5% year-on-year. It saw the strongest frequency growth among all retailers once again, up 16.1% year-on-year, which contributed an additional €96.1m to overall performance.
SuperValu holds 20.6% of the market with growth of 4%. Its shoppers visit their stores most frequently compared to all other retailers, making 21.3 trips on average.
Meanwhile, Lidl holds 13.6% share with growth of 11.6% year-on-year. More frequent trips contributed to an additional €37.1m to overall performance.
And Aldi holds 12.5% with growth of 5.6% year-on-year, with a strong boost in new shoppers and more frequent trips contributing an additional €25.1m to overall performance.
Article Source: Grocery price inflation falls to lowest level in a year – Kantar – RTE