Hot weather beer boost for UK supermarkets

New data shows that Britain’s supermarkets have received a huge sales boost with large increases in the sales of beer, cider and perry during the warm weeks of July.

FMCG market and shopper intelligence firm IRI has analysed the grocery sales data for the two weeks period up to 20 July and found some big gains in comparison to the same period last year.

With total sales of £132.8 million over the two weeks beer sales increased by 50% on last year, contributing more additional revenue than any other product, an extra £44.5m.

Tim Eales, strategic insight director at IRI, said: “Over the years that we have been measuring and analysing grocery sales, the weather probably has the largest single effect on what people buy and when. Hot weather does tend to lead big sales spikes in certain products, giving a huge boost to retailers and manufacturers alike.”

Cider and Perry also saw huge increases compared to last year, with IRI adding that new advertising campaigns by cider brands in addition to the weather contributed to a £22.9m in additional sales, an increase of 97%.

Big swings in sales like this can cause problems for retailers, as stock issues can mean that manufacturers don’t always sell as much as they would like during a demand surge.

Eales added: “The best manufacturers can do is to learn from past behaviours and to plan for the variability extreme weather changes brings. Econometric modelling and other tools that brands and retailers use to predict sales and to adjust their stocks and range assortments, ideally need to take account of long and short term climate changes.”