INTENSE price competition has slowed growth in the British grocery market to its lowest level for more than a decade. The low figure – 1.9% according to retail analyst Kantar Worldpanel – was caused by the big four supermarkets fighting back against the onward march of the discounters by lowering prices.
Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “The big four are moving away from ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ promotions and toward everyday low prices, with Tesco, Morrisons and Asda all announcing price cuts.
“The proportion of sales on promotion currently stands at 45% among the big four. The figure at Aldi is 3%. Lower prices across the board is great for shoppers, but has driven down market growth to its lowest level in 11 years.”
The premium and discount sections of the market continue to shine with Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl achieving 5.1%, 4.7% and 3.5% of market share. Aldi’s sales grew by 36.1% in the last quarter, its all-time record. Lidl’s 20.9% growth is its highest since August 2004.
Kantar measured a small drop in c-stores’ and symbols’ share of take-home sales from 2.2% to 2.1%. The amount spent dropped by 3% over the same period.
