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Kantar: grocery inflation continues to drop

26 March 2024 By Arabella Mileham

Grocery price inflation dropped to its lowest level in two years, last month, down to 4.5%, the latest data from Kantar have revealed.

Despite the easing of grocery price inflation however, down from an eye-watering peak of 17% in March 2023, Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt noted that many households were still “feeling the squeeze”.

“23% identified themselves as struggling financially in our data,” he noted, “the same proportion as reported in November last year.”

However, there was growth in premium own-label, up 16.1% during the month, the quickest rate in nearly three years.

Last month Kantar reported a strong rebound for alcohol dales during, an 18% boost in volume terms.

In terms of retailer performance, the UK’s two largest grocers, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, saw sales up 5.8% and 6.7% respectively, pushing both of their market shares up by 0.4 percentage points, hitting 27.3% (Tesco) and 15.2% (Sainsbury). However it was Ocado who was the fastest growing retailer this month, in part due to a sustained voucher campaign which brought in new customers, one of only two retailers to boost its number of shopper numbers, along with Waitrose. Sales rose by 9.5% over the 12 weeks, well ahead of the total online market which rose only 6.6%.

Meanwhile Morrisons continued its upward trend, with a year of consistent growth as sale grew 3.6% during the latest 12 week period, with its share of overall spend now at 8.7%. Lidl also saw a strong quarter, with growth of 8.8%, boosting its market share to 7.8% of the market, ahead of fellow discounter Aldi, which saw sales of 3.1%, and a market share of 9.8%.

Waitrose saw sales climb 3.9%, while Asda increased its sales by 0.2%.

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