An extra €90 million was spent on groceries during the recent festive period, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland.
This morning Kantar published the latest grocery market share figures for the 12-week period ending December 31.
Commenting on the announcement, director at Kantar Worldpanel David Berry said: “Over the Christmas period the average household spent a record €1,532 on groceries – an increase of €38 compared to last year.
Much of this increase has been driven by staple items – with fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry posting a combined sales increase of €28 million.
“Shoppers were also partial to a Christmas tipple with sales of alcohol up almost 6% – a boost of €13 million. Wine was the drink of choice this year, with white wine and red wine sales up an impressive 10% and 12% respectively,” he added.
The figures also showed that Dunnes Stores remained Ireland’s most popular supermarket, with a market share of 23% – up 0.3 percentage points on this time last year. The grocer also achieved its strongest sales growth since May 2017, up 4.9%.
Dunnes Stores’ customers remained loyal to the store, with perks such as the ‘Shop and Save’ campaign encouraging customers to add extra items to their shopping baskets, Kantar added.
Tesco record strongest sales increase since 2011
Continuing, Berry said: “Tesco also performed strongly, achieving its highest sales growth since February 2011 – up 5.8%.
The supermarket’s impressive growth helped it increase its market share by 0.5 percentage points compared to this time last year, and it now stands at 22.8%.
“SuperValu clocked in sales growth of 2%, with the grocer encouraging customers to spend an extra 70c every time they shop.”
Kantar explained that, historically, shoppers have chosen to trade up over the Christmas period.
However, Lidl seems to have broken the trend this year, it added. The retailer “enjoyed a positive performance” over the Christmas period, with market share rising to 10.4% thanks to sales growth of 4.8%, figures show.
Meanwhile, Aldi saw sales rise by 0.9%; this was below the overall market level and led to a slight dip in market share – down 0.3 percentage points compared to this time last year.
Online shopping
The trend towards online shopping is showing no signs of slowing down, Berry said.
“Online grocers experienced impressive sales growth of 24%, which boosted their share of the market to a record 2.3% over the Christmas period.
“Although grocery e-commerce shoppers haven’t increased in numbers, customers who already shop online have upped the frequency of their purchases with – on average – one extra order placed over this period,” he concluded.