GROCERY sales in Britain rose 7% year-on-year in the four weeks to Aug 8, slowing from previous weeks as shoppers began to settle into new post-Covid-19 lockdown routines, industry data showed today.
Market researcher Nielsen said the growth, though down from 10% in last month’s report, was driven by warm weather and Britons continuing to work from home, spending less on eating out, and taking staycation holidays.
It said that over the four-week period, in-store sales growth was just 0.3%, but online grocery growth continued to accelerate, up 117%, maintaining its 14% share of all grocery sales.
Consumers were still shopping less often than they did prior to the pandemic, Nielsen said, noting visits to stores were down 15% on the same period last year, but this was up from the 22% drop registered in May.
Over the 12-week period to Aug 8, Morrisons, Britain’s No. 4 supermarket group, was the top performer of the country’s big four grocers with a 13.6% rise in sales.
Market leader Tesco saw growth of 10.1%, followed by No. 2 Sainsbury’s on 7.9%.
Walmart-owned Asda was again the laggard with growth of 6.8%.
However, frozen food specialist Iceland, up 24.4%, had the strongest sales growth overall.
German owned discounters Aldi and Lidl saw growth of 10.8% and 9.1% respectively, though Lidl’s market share edged lower. – Aug 18, 2020, Reuters
