Dunnes Stores has held steady as Ireland's top supermarket for the 13th month in row, with the arrival of the new season.
The latest figures from Kantar showed that growth in the Irish grocery market remained at 2.7%, during the 12 weeks to 8 September 2019, as shoppers stocked up on September staples.
“When summer draws to a close people return to their normal routines and their shopping habits shift accordingly," Charlotte Scott, consumer insight director at Kantar, outlined.
"Children are back at school and parents needing easy breakfast and packed-lunch options have boosted sales of cereals, yoghurts and bread by 14%, 10% and 6% respectively during the past four weeks, compared with the month before."
100 Days To Christmas
If you’re one of the people that feels like Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year – you might be right, highlighted Scott.
"With less than 100 days to go until the big day, retailers have been ramping up their festive activity with deals on seasonal chocolates including advent calendars." She said.
"Sales of chocolate boxes and gifts were 65% higher than the previous four weeks as people took the opportunity to get a head start on their shopping.”
Neck-and-Neck
Tesco and SuperValu are neck-and-neck with 21.4% grocery market this month.
“SuperValu has returned to growth following two periods of negative growth and these 12 weeks represent its slowest share decline since September 2018," Scott explained.
"Following a similar trend to the overall market, its shoppers have been making fewer, larger shops and taking home nearly one more item on average per trip."
Meanwhile, Tesco’s sales decline softened to 0.5% as volume sales moved into growth, up 0.9% compared with last year," she said.
It might be too soon to call these improved performances from Tesco and SuperValu a fightback, but it will be welcome news given the recent success of Dunnes, Aldi and Lidl.
Retailers Showing Growth
Aldi increased its market share this period while posting growth of 11.4%, the research showed.
The report highlighted that with each customer now picking up 19.7 items each visit, Aldi is clipping at the heels of Dunnes where the average is 20 – the highest in the market.
Dunnes achieved the second fastest growth during the past 12 weeks at 5.8% and attracted an additional 38,000 shoppers compared with this time last year.
"If there was one negative in Dunnes’ report card it would be that customers are visiting its stores less often – but that decline remains marginal at 0.3%.” Scott said.
Slight Share Increase
Scott said that despite the fact that Lidl’s growth slowed to 4.1% it remains ahead of the market and has increased its share from 11.8% to 11.9%.
"The retailer also performed well in some standout categories in the past 12 weeks – sales of frozen desserts were up 24%," she said "despite declining by 4% in the wider market, and bread sales increased by 17%, compared with 2% across total grocers."
© 2019 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Donna Ahern. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
