Champagne puts fizz in UK supermarket sales

Champagne and wine sales helped lift Christmas sales at some of the UK’s major retailers, according to results published so far.

Morrisons reported a strong Christmas and New Year, which saw champagne sales rise 64%, while Sainsbury’s’ also reported premium champagne sales up more than 50% and Aldi saw wine rise 75% acoss December.

Morrisons saw group like-for-like sales (excluding -fuel sales) up to 9.3%, despite increasing costs associated with Covid-19, and “rapid” growth of its online and wholesale channels

It noted that shopping patterns and customer behaviour were different as a result of the restrictions imposed by the government to minimise contact between households over the festive period. It brought key shopping days forward, with customers shopping earlier than in previous years.

Meanwhile Sainsbury’s, which brought its scheduled trading statement forward, saw like-for-like sales across the business up  +9.3% with grocery sales up +7.4%, and online groceries seeing growth of +128% – with more than double the amount of deliveries than last year. In-store it noted that its SmartShop self-scan service accounted for 28 % of sales.

Customers treated themselves with the retailer’s premium own label, Taste the Difference seeing sales up 11%, while premium champagne jumped +52%.