UK consumers splash out on premium own label wine over Christmas

Premium own label wine saw a spike of sales over the Christmas period, as consumers treated themselves, the latest data from Kantar has shown.

Sparkling and premium own-label still wine sales grew 22% and 18% respectively, according to Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt.

He noted an appetite to celebrate and splash out that little bit more this year, which helped pushed sales up, notably of luxury own-brand products up across the board.

While Tesco’s Finest and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference are the largest premium own-label ranges by far, there was also fast growth from Asda Extra Special and Iceland Luxury range, he added. As a result, spending across the grocery channel accelerated in December with spending higher than it was before the pandemic and sales 8.0% stronger than in 2019.

Overall grocery sales reached £11.7 billion in the four weeks to 26 December and there was evidence of a resumption of consumer confidence as in-store visits hit their highest level since March 2020. This was also reflected by the fall in online sales fell in December, down by 3.7% against 2020 to account for 12.2% of sales.

The other notable feature was grocery price inflation, which rose to at 3.5% in the latest four weeks on a like-for-like basis – its highest level since spring 2020 – adding nearly £15 to shoppers’ average monthly grocery bill.

“We saw prices rise faster for a short while in Spring 2020 when promotions were cut to maintain product availability, but before that you would have to go back nearly four years to January 2018 to see inflation running higher,” McKevitt said.