Big three grocers lose market share while Aldi powers ahead

Aldi UK's headquarters in Atherstone

Aldi, which has its UK headquarters in Atherstone and became the UK’s fifth-largest supermarket at the start of 2017, has boosted sales by 15.1% – the fastest rate of growth since January.

In its latest figures, research firm Kantar Worldpanel said Britain’s three biggest grocers, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda lost market share in the 12 weeks to Oct 7 as consumers increasingly shopped at discount supermarkets.

The rise in Aldi’s sales was supported by its fresh and chilled aisles, with sales of dairy products up 24% and fresh poultry up 29% compared with last year.  Some 6% of Aldi’s sales came from premium own-label lines including its Specially Selected range – a higher proportion than any other supermarket – and its growing number of stores helped it increase its market share by 0.8 percentage points to 7.6%.

Lidl attracted 5% more shoppers through its doors compared with the same period last year and persuaded visitors to spend an extra 55 pence per trip – a greater increase than any of its rivals – helping the store achieve sales growth of 10.0% and a market share of 5.6%.

Sainsbury’s, which has agreed to takeover Asda, posted growth of just 0.6%, Kantar said, while sales at market leader Tesco rose 0.9%.

Asda saw an increase of 2.4%, the same as seen at number four, Morrisons.

With sales up 7.0%, Co-op was the only other bricks and mortar retailer to gain market share.

Growing ahead of the market, Ocado and Iceland sales were up by 7.5% and 4.8% respectively.  Meanwhile, Waitrose sales grew by 0.1%, with market share down by 0.1 percentage points to 5.2%.
Grocery inflation now stands at +2.0% for the 12 week period ending 7 October 2018.

Prices have been rising since the 12 weeks to 1 January 2017, following a period of grocery price deflation which ran for 30 consecutive periods from September 2014 to December 2016.

Prices are rising fastest in markets such as cola, butter and sparkling wine.

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