While grocery price inflation has fallen to its lowest level since February 2022, increasing numbers of UK shoppers are turning to cheaper groceries and promotions to help manage their budgets, Kantar has said.
Some 78% of shoppers are actively buying cheaper groceries, while more than two thirds (68%) are using promotions to help manage budgets, Kantar noted, as it revealed that take-home grocery sales rose by 4.6% in the UK over the four weeks to 17 March.
Promotional Activity
Retailers are responding to shopper demand for value, with £605 million (€705.9 million) more spent on deals this month than in March last year, according to Kantar, while nearly one third of baskets across Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda collectively contained at least one 'price matched' product.
“Premium own-label lines have been a big beneficiary of consumers trading down, growing by a whopping 16.1% this month – the quickest rate we’ve seen in nearly three years," commented Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.
"However, sales of branded goods pushed just ahead of own label overall, increasing sales by 6.1% and 4.7% respectively in the latest four weeks.”
Grocery Performance
As to the performance of the UK's main grocers, Ocado was the fastest-growing retailer in the 12 week period to 17 March, boosted by a 'sustained voucher campaign', Kantar said. The online grocer saw its sales rise 9.5% in the period, and currently sits on a 1.9% share of the market.
Market leader Tesco (27.3% market share) saw a 5.8% increase in sales, while Sainsbury's (15.2% market share) saw sales increase by 6.7%. Of the discounters, Lidl was the stronger performer, seeing sales rise by 8.8%, compared to Aldi's 3.1%.
“Grocery inflation has come down significantly since hitting an eye-watering peak of 17% in March 2023," McKevitt added. "However, despite this continued slowdown, many British households are still feeling the squeeze. 23% identified themselves as struggling financially in our data – the same proportion as reported in November last year.”
