New figures from Kantar show that grocery inflation stood at 2.6% in the 12 weeks to May 12, down from 13.3% the same time last year and the lowest level since March 2022.
Today’s figures also show that take-home grocery sales rose by 4.7% in the four weeks to May 12, with volumes per trip up slightly by 0.2% while frequency of shopping trips also rose by 1%.
Shoppers were making 21 trips on average over the four weeks to May 12.
Kantar noted that retailers are promoting their own label ranges to get shoppers through the door, while sales of own label are performing well and growing ahead of the total market at 5.7% year-on-year, with shoppers spending an additional €86m year-on-year.
Premium own label performed particularly strongly with shoppers spending an additional €18.4m, up 12.6% compared to this time last year.
Brands also grew by 4% over the latest 12 weeks with shoppers spending an additional €59m, but growth was slightly behind the total market.
Emer Healy, Business Development Director at Kantar, noted that the first signs of summer arrived just in time for the early May Bank Holiday as consumers dusted off their barbeques.
Ms Healy said that shoppers spent an additional €614,000 on sausages this month, €497,000 on chilled burgers and grills, €454,000 on chilled prepared salads and €3.4m on soft drinks, to make the most of the sun.
Sales of beer and wine were also up 4.1% with shoppers spending an additional €2.7m compared to last month.
Meanwhile, online sales were up 18.6% year-on-year with shoppers spending an additional €31.3m on the
platform.
Today’s figures show that Dunnes holds a 23.7% market share of the supermarket sector with growth of 7% year-on-year. Its growth stemmed mainly from more frequent trips, up 4%, which contributed €29.7m to its overall performance.
Tesco holds 23% of the market, up 7.1% year-on-year. Kantar noted that the supermarket group had the strongest trip frequency growth amongst all retailers for another month in a row, up 8.7% year-on-year. This contributed an additional €61.2m to their overall performance
SuperValu holds 20.4% of the market with growth of 3.7% with its customers making the most trips in store compared to all retailers, an average of 21.6 trips. The retailer also saw the strongest growth in volume per trip, up 8.9%, which contributed an additional €56.2m to its overall performance.
Meanwhile, Lidl holds a 13.8% market share after growth of 6.1% year-on-year. More frequent trips contributed an additional €42.2m to the discount retailer’s overall performance.
Aldi holds a 11.6% market share with new customer recruits as well as more frequent trips contributing an additional €15.4m to its overall performance.
Article Source – Grocery price inflation falls to 2.6% in May from 13.3% last year – RTE