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Brexit has 'not affected' retail sales volumes or prices 

Brexit has had “no immdediate impact” on retail prices or sales volumes, which are showing slow growth of 0.1 per cent on last year, according to new Kantar figures.

The nation’s average shopping basket is 1.4 per cent cheaper than a year ago, exactly the same level of deflation as last month, and it remains to be seen if the Brexit vote will cause any price rises this year, Kantar analysts said.

The latest grocery share figures, published today for the 12 weeks ending 17 July 2016, also showed Tesco’s rate of sales loss has slowed, while Morrisons recorded its best results since January, with sales down by 1.8 per cent.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “The EU referendum result has had no immediate impact on the prices retailers are charging or the sales volumes consumers are buying over the past 12 weeks.

“Among the individual retailers, sales at Tesco fell by 0.7 per cent. The retailer’s market share declines are now slowing, down by 0.2% percentage points to 28.3% of the market – this is Tesco’s slowest rate of share loss since March 2014 and has been helped by an improved performance from its larger stores.

“While Morrisons’ overall market share fell by 0.2 percentage points to 10.7 per cent, its premium own-label lines showed strong growth of 3.8 per cent – the best premium private-label performance among the big four.”

Sales at Iceland are up 2.8 per cent year-on-year. Co-op increased sales by 2.1 per cent and Waitrose grew 1.6 per cent, with all three retailers gaining market share for the third consecutive period.

Lidl reached a new market share high of 4.5 per cent thanks to a sales increase of 12.5 per cent while Aldi, increased market share to 6.2 per cent.

Newly installed Asda chief executive Sean Clarke saw sales fall by 5.6 per cent, with share declining to 15.5 per cent. McKevitt said: “Asda is alone among the big four retailers in increasing the proportion of sales made on promotion compared with last year. However, its absolute level of sales sold on a deal remains behind its large competitors, where promotions account for 45.2 per cent of sales.”