Aldi beats Morrisons in battle of the supermarkets

Discount supermarket group Aldi, which has its UK head office in Atherstone, attracted more shoppers in the last 12 weeks than Morrisons, the UK’s fourth biggest supermarket.

Thirteen million households shopped at an Aldi store during the 12 weeks to March 24, according to the latest Kantar data.

Aldi sales increased by 10.6%, helping it achieve a new record high market share of 8%.

Despite attracting an additional 40,000 shoppers over the past year, sales at Morrison’s fell by 0.1% this period as visitors picked up fewer items on each trip to the store.

Fraser McKevitt, consumer head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “Thirteen million households visited Aldi at least once in the past 12 weeks – now more than those shopping at Morrisons.  London holds potential for Aldi – as both its fastest growing region and where its market share is currently lowest – going some way to explain the recently announced trial of the smaller Aldi Local format in the capital.”

Lidl was the second fastest growing supermarket, with sales increasing quicker than last month at 5.8% and market share growing by 0.3 percentage points to 5.6%.  Particularly strong growth was seen in bakery goods, frozen foods and biscuits.

Tesco grew by 0.5% to achieve market share of 27.4%, 0.2 percentage points lower than a year ago.

As Easter approaches, Asda has built on two years of continuous growth and increased sales by 0.1% this period to become the second largest retailer in Great Britain, with a 15.4% market share.  Asda’s performance has been fuelled by attracting a greater number of affluent households and shoppers making more regular trips.

Sales at Sainsbury’s fell by 1.8% and market share dropped by 0.5 percentage points to 15.3%.

McKevitt said: “Despite being overtaken by Asda in main store sales, Sainsbury’s remains the biggest seller of food and drink out of the two retailers and these figures do not include Argos.

“Sainsbury’s premium ‘Taste the Difference’ line is still a bright spot, with sales rising 4.4% and the brand growing sales of alcohol, poultry and dairy products in particular.”

Growth accelerated at Co-op, taking its market share to 6.1%.  New store openings and a focus on own brand lines, which saw strong growth of 6.5% compared with last year, helped generate sales, particularly in London.

Meanwhile, Ocado’s market share reached a new high of 1.3%.

At 1.3%, Waitrose posted its strongest growth since August 2018, as running less promotional activity than last year has allowed full price sales to increase.  Iceland sales increased by 0.6%, with its share staying at 2.1% of the market.