Grocery Market Share UK - All time record share for discounters

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 17 April 2011, show stellar performances for the German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Aldi and Lidl lead market growth this period, with year-on-year sales increases of 15% and 14.7% respectively. Both retailers also achieved all-time record market shares of 3.3% for Aldi and 2.6% for Lidl.

Edward Garner, Communications Director at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “While the discounters are performing well this trend is not a re-run of 2008 when new shoppers turned to these outlets in response to the recession and 9% food price inflation. Currently, discounter growth is fuelled by existing shoppers sharply increasing their spending levels.

While in comparison to other major outlets Aldi and Lidl’s basket sizes remain relatively small, there is no doubt that these two retailers are now taking a larger portion of shoppers’ spending.”

After the discounters, the next highest grocery growth was posted by Waitrose at 7.7% - providing further evidence that not everyone is responding to economic pressures in the same way.

Major share growth remains elusive for the top four retailers this period with only Morrisons out-performing the market to lift share from 11.8% 12 months ago to 11.9%.

Edward Garner continues: “Last period, the grocery growth rate plunged from 3.9% to 2.6%, suggesting that shoppers’ purses had snapped shut. This period, growth has recovered somewhat to 3.6%. Part of the reason for this is the late timing of Easter in 2011. Seasonal products such as flowers, hot-cross buns, lamb and, of course, Easter eggs all showed sharp decreases over the same period last year as Easter was much earlier. However, this year there may well be a degree of catch-up taking place as Easter markets peak later.”

An update on inflation

Grocery inflation stands at 4.3%* for the 12 period week ending 17 April 2011. This is the fifth successive increase and remains ahead of grocery market growth. However, it remains our view that grocery inflation will not exceed 5% this year and will start to fall back during the Summer.

*This figure is based on over 75,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by British shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available. It is a ‘pure’ inflation measure in that shopping behaviour is held constant between the two comparison periods – shoppers are likely to achieve a lower personal inflation rate if they trade down or seek out more offers.