New industry figures suggest that supermarkets experienced the busiest Christmas period since before the pandemic. According to research firm Kantar, customers made 488 million grocery trips in the four weeks leading up to 24 December, with £13.7bn passing through the tills. This impressive performance came as food price inflation decreased to 6.7% in December – a rate that Kantar said was the fastest drop it had ever recorded.
Although British households spent £477 on average, many are still feeling “pretty hefty pressures on their budgets”. Kantar described Christmas trading as “a whopper”, with 22 December being the most popular day when just over 25 million trips to stores were made. Appetite for traditional Christmas dinner items was particularly strong in 2023, including volumes of parsnips, sprouts, and potatoes, along with festive meats such as pigs in blankets, sausages, hams, and turkeys.
The research firm noted that retailers used promotions to entice shoppers over the festive period, with nearly a third of all the money spent on items with some kind of offer. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, and Lidl all grew their market share in the battle for customers. Sainsbury’s saw its highest market share since December 2020 at 15.8%, pushing up its sales by 9.3%. Tesco now holds 27.6% of the market and grew its sales by 7.5%.
In addition, Aldi and Lidl reported “record” Christmas trading. The British arm of Aldi said that sales topped £1.5bn for the first time in the four weeks to Christmas Eve, while Lidl claimed its best Christmas yet since it entered the British market in 1994. Analysts suggested that elevated costs remained the primary factor driving higher takings among stores.
Overall, the average household spent £28 more on groceries across the month than compared to December 2022, with the number of items bought up by 2%. “Supermarkets saw especially strong performances for their own-label lines, with sales of premium ranges like Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest surging by 11.9% compared with last year to hit £790m – accounting for 5.7% of all grocery sales”, said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar. Mince pies and Christmas puddings bucked the trend and were less popular this year, according to Kantar. Recent BBC research found the price of mince pies had risen by 25%, with bakers facing pressure from higher wage, packaging and production costs
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