Co-Operative back in growth ahead of British grocery market

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 19 July 2015, show a slow growth in the British grocery market. Overall sales have increased by 0.8% compared with a year ago, with stronger growth being enjoyed by the smaller retailers.

Fraser McKevitt, head of consumer and retail insight at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “The Co-operative has returned to growth for the first time since July 2014, increasing its sales by 1.0%. The Manchester-based grocer’s focus on its convenience offer has been rewarded with an increase in shopper numbers, which have risen by 133,000. While The Co-operative’s growth is slightly ahead of the market, its overall share of 6.3% has remained the same as last year.”

Despite a fall in sales of 0.3%, Sainsbury’s has edged its market share of 16.5% ahead of Asda, which now stands at 16.4%. Sainsbury’s has returned to its position as the nation’s second largest supermarket for the first time since January, boosted by non-food sales, its Sainsbury’s Local outlets and faster market growth in the south of the country, where it operates a larger number of stores.

Growth has accelerated at Waitrose, where sales have risen by 3.0%. Customers have taken advantage of the recently introduced ‘Pick Your Own Offers’ initiative to push market share up to 5.0%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared with last year.

Fraser McKevitt continues: “The continued slow growth of the overall market can be explained by minimal volume growth and lower like-for-like prices, both as a result of cheaper commodity prices and the fierce competition between supermarkets. Comparable groceries are now 1.6% cheaper than a year ago, meaning prices have been falling since September 2014, although they are projected to start rising again by early 2016.”

Aldi grew by 16.6% while Lidl saw growth of 11.3%, meaning both have moved to new market share highs of 5.6% and 4.0% respectively. Morrisons was the best performer among the ‘big four’ retailers, although sales fell back by 0.1%. Meanwhile, sales at Tesco fell by 0.6% and at Asda by 2.7%. At Iceland sales were up by 3.0%, coinciding with its recent ‘Power of Frozen’ advertising campaign.

Kantar Worldpanel has launched a new data visualisation tool that allows you to view and analyse Grocery Market Share data online. The latest sales share figures for all of the major grocers can be viewed and compared with historical figures here and all graphics within the Kantar Worldpanel dataviz are available to embed in your site. (Optimal viewing in recent versions of Internet Explorer or Chrome)