Supermarket sales have seen a “marked turnaround” with growth accelerating to five per cent for the 12 weeks to 18 June, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel figures.
The growth increase is the biggest rise since March 2012 and compares to the 0.2 per cent decline seen this time last year.Online grocery sales were up 10.7 per cent and Kantar said Amazon’s potential purchase of Whole Foods has “brought renewed focus to online shopping', while several individual retailers saw sales rise as turnaround strategies continue to see success.
“The market’s robust performance this period is partly down to particularly weak sales growth last year and a continuing increase in like-for-like grocery inflation, which is now running at 3.2 per cent,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.
Among the major retailers, Tesco sales grew by 3.5 per cent, its fastest rate since April 2012, second only to Morrisons with sales growth of 3.7 per cent. Lidl beat Aldi to become the UK’s fastest growing supermarket for the first time since March, with sales growth of 18.8 per cent just ahead of the latter’s 18.7 per cent.
McKevitt continued: “Asda is the only retailer where branded products are outpacing own label lines – significant for the grocer given it sells a greater proportion of brands than many of its rivals. That isn’t to say Asda’s own label offer is struggling – its Extra Special premium line and recently launched Farm Stores range contributed to a 1.4 per cent increase in private label sales. Overall sales rose by 2.2 per cent, although its market share fell half a percentage point year-on-year to 15.1 per cent.'
Co-op has now seen continuous growth for a full two years, up 2.2 per cent in the latest period, while Iceland grew by 7.4 per cent. Among premium retailers, Waitrose had its best sales growth since March 2012 (+5.3 per cent).
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