New figures from Kantar show that grocery inflation has fallen below 10% for the first time this year.
Grocery inflation fell to 9.8% in the 12 weeks to October 29, down from 10.5% and marking the sixth month of falls in a row.
Figures last week from the CSO showed that the annual rate of inflation slowed to 5.1% in October from an annual rate of 6.4% in September.
Today’s figures from Kantar also show that take-home grocery sales in Ireland increased by 7.2% in the four weeks to 29 October.
Shoppers visited stores more often in October with an average of 20.1 trips over the month – an increase of of 3.6% – but volumes per trip continued to decline on last year – a decrease of 5.9%.
Kantar said the percentage of packs sold on promotion rose slightly by 0.4% compared to last month. The percentage of sales sold on promotion currently stands at 24.8%, up 6.9% year-on-year and the highest level seen since August.
It added that own label value share stands at 47.5%, with brands holding 47.4%, up 0.6% on last month for branded goods.
Emer Healy, Business Development Director at Kanta, said that Irish shoppers are looking out for the best deals and own label goods remained popular over the last 12 weeks, with sales up 11% compared to brands at 6.2%, an increase of 1.1% on last month.
“Premium own label ranges had the strongest growth, up 12.1% with shoppers spending an additional €14.8m year-on-year. It looks like shoppers may be trying to temper their spend and seek savings now through own label lines so they can splurge on the upcoming holiday season,” she added.
She said that as the festive season approaches and Christmas hits the supermarkets early, consumers are already reaching for more branded and premium own label products.
More indulgent categories are benefiting as a result, with seasonal biscuits and take-home confectionery all seeing more accelerated growth rates on promotion year-on-year, she added.
Meanwhile, online sales remained strong over the 12-week period, up 28% year-on-year with shoppers spending an additional €39.6m on the platform.
Today’s figures also show that Dunnes, Tesco and Lidl all grew ahead of the total market in terms of value this month.
Dunnes held a 23.7% market share with growth of 10.8% year-on-year and a boost in new shoppers, up 2.33 percentage points, contributing an additional €23.9m to their overall performance. Dunnes saw the strongest growth in new shoppers and volume per trip among all the retailers during the period under review.
Tesco had a 22.5% share of the market with 11.3% growth year-on-year. Tesco had the strongest frequency growth among all retailers once again, up 13.1% year-on-year, alongside new shopper arrivals, which contributed an additional €81.7m to their overall performance.
Meanwhile, SuperValu held 20.6% of the market with growth of 6%. Kantar said that SuperValu shoppers made the most trips in store amongst all retailers on average 22.3 trips alongside an increase volume per trip, which contributed an additional €32.6m to their overall performance.
Lidl held a 13.5% market share with growth of 10.7% year-on-year. More frequent trips contributed to an additional €43.1m to its overall performance.
And Aldi holds 12.1% with growth of 2.6% year-on-year, while more frequent trips contributed an additional €25.9 to its overall performance, Kantar said.
Article Source – Grocery inflation falls to 9.8% from 10.5% – RTE