Dunnes Stores has retained its position as Ireland’s largest grocer, holding a 23.1%, market share in the latest 12 weeks, research shows.
The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar in Ireland showed that the retailer saw a 7.8% year-on-year growth, which stems from a 3.5 percentage point increase in new shoppers going to the store, contributing an additional €35.1 million to its performance.
Tesco holds 21.9% of the market, with sales up by 0.4%, compared with last year.
Sales growth of 6.6% has been boosted for Tesco by more frequent return trips by customers.
SuperValu posted particularly strong results across the first year of the COVID pandemic and the latest data is the first period of growth since April 2021, with sales up by 0.5% compared to last year.
Lidl holds 13.1% share, growing by 7.3% year-on-year as new shoppers paid trips to the and existing shoppers returned more often during the period, which in turn contributed a combined additional €17.7 million to the discounters overall performance.
Aldi holds 12.7% of the market, growing 3.5% year-on-year, with existing shoppers returning to the store more often.
Inflation Impact
The data indicated that grocery inflation rose to another record-breaking high of 13.4%.
“As food and drink prices continue to climb alongside a rise in household bills, the impact on shoppers’ budgets is unavoidable for many Irish consumers. With inflation standing at 13.4% for October, the average annual grocery bill will go from €7,019 to €7,960 – an increase of €941 a year if consumers don’t make changes to what they buy and where they shop," commented Emer Healy, senior retail analyst at Kantar.
At a basket level, that’s an extra €3.80 on top of the cost of the average shopping trip, which currently stands at €28.20.
"Irish households are looking to manage budgets through a ‘little and often’ approach to shopping. On average, families are adding one extra trip per month, we’re seeing a 9% increase in these smaller trips where less than €30 is spent. In comparison, the extra-large shopping trips where households spend more than €150 have declined by 4%,” she added.
Own Label
According to Kantar, sales of own label jumped 9.4% over the latest 12 weeks with shoppers spending an additional €115 million year-on-year.
Own label now accounts for almost half (46%) of the overall grocery market in Ireland. Value own label ranges saw the strongest growth, up 27% with shoppers spending €13.3m more year-on-year.
Dairy products have the biggest market share (42.2%) within these value ranges.
Healy highlighted that it is interesting to see that shoppers are also beginning to seek out premium own label offerings as they move their out-of-home spend in-home as a means of controlling their discretionary spending.
"As a result, shoppers are spending an additional €5.3 million on premium offerings, including spending an additional €902,000 on toiletries, €800,000 on fruit and €676,000 on chilled ready meals,” she said.
Christmas Fails To Come Early
Halloween brought some festive relief for consumers, while only 18% of households bought a pumpkin this year compared to 24% in 2021, Irish consumers still spent an additional €2.2 million on chocolate confectionary and crisps and €1.8 million on sugar confectionery.
While it seems that Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year, this year fewer people are stocking up for Christmas in October.
“This time last year 30% of Irish households had already purchased seasonal biscuits, whereas only 23% have this year. And this also rings true with chocolate as shoppers are spending €2.1 million less on gifting chocolate and €1.2 million less on seasonal chocolate," said Healy.
"The exception to this is mince pies, as consumers have already spent an additional €220,000 on these festive treats compared to this time last year."
© 2022 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Donna Ahern. For more retail news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition
