Warm weather and ‘Markle Sparkle’ dazzle grocery in UK

The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks to 20 May 2018, reveal that the recent hot weather combined with the Meghan Markle effect sparked strong market growth in UK – up 2.7% on last year. 

Chris Hayward, consumer specialist at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “The sun shone on the grocery market over the past month with record-breaking temperatures, a bank holiday weekend and Royal Wedding fever all contributing to a bumper period.  The Friday before the day of the wedding and the FA Cup Final experienced a particularly noticeable spike in sales, with grocers clocking in £415 million over the 24 hours. 

“The festivities and warm weather encouraged shoppers to fire up the barbeque.  Over the past month, sales of burgers and sausages rose by 39% and 12% respectively, while non-alcoholic beer sales jumped by 64%.  Meanwhile, over 16.6 million households chose to pick up an ice cream as temperatures soared.  The hot weather also saw sensible Brits making a beeline for the sun care section, with sales rocketing by 64% on this time last year.”

Morrisons performed particularly well over the past 12 weeks.  Its sales growth of 2.9% is ahead of the overall market. 

Chris Hayward continues: “Morrisons has been enjoying a successful run of form.  The retailer has now celebrated 19 consecutive periods of sales growth and has held market share at 10.5%.  The supermarket succeeded in attracting an additional 311,000 new shoppers through its doors.  Morrisons saw its alcohol sales increase by almost 8%, while the relaunch of the grocer’s own-label line ‘Savers’ also contributed to overall performance.

“With year-on-year sales growth of 2.8%, Asda is also performing ahead of the grocery market.  The retailer continues to prove popular with young families, while an increase in spend per trip – up £0.56 to £26.88 on average – has helped buoy sales.  Asda’s e-commerce offering is also proving a winner among shoppers – the grocer’s online channel saw sales rise by 7.6% year-on-year.”

Over the past 12 weeks Tesco experienced a sales increase of 2.2% and encouraged an extra 170,000 customers to its stores, despite dropping market share by 0.1 percentage points to 27.7%.  Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s first increase in promotional activity in three years helped boost sales by 1.0% year-on-year, though the retailer’s market share fell back by 0.2 percentage points.    

Chris Hayward continues: “Over the past 12 weeks Lidl was the only bricks and mortar retailer to experience double-digit sales growth – up 10.4%.  Branded sales have played a pivotal role for the discounter, accounting for 30% of Lidl’s growth.  Aldi also continues to perform well: with sales up 6.7%, its market share grew by 0.3 percentage points from 7.0% to 7.3%.”

While the disposal of 300 McColls stores is still impacting headline performance, Co-op has experienced sales growth of 1.5%.  Despite experiencing marginal year-on-year sales growth of 0.3%, Waitrose saw its market share fall back by 0.1 percentage points to 5.1%. 

Iceland also dropped market share by 0.1 percentage points, though the retailer saw sales increase by 0.8%.  Ocado’s e-commerce offer continues to entice shoppers: the online retailer has attracted an additional 132,000 new households over the past 12 weeks and has seen its year-on-year sales increase by 12.7%.