Irish supermarket inflation falls to lowest level this year at 15.8%

Irish supermarket inflation has fallen to its lowest level this year with retail analysts Kantar reporting a rate of 15.8 per cent over the last month compared with the 16.5 per cent recorded four weeks ago.

The figures suggest that take-home grocery sales in Ireland increased by 10.8 per cent with inflation driving the increase.

Over the 12 weeks to June 11th, grocery inflation rose by 15.8 per cent compared with last month’s level of 16.5 per cent.

“This latest drop in grocery price inflation will be very welcome news for consumers,” said Kantar’s Emer Healy.

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However, she stressed that it is “too soon to say if this is the ceiling as inflation rates are still much higher than we have previously seen”.

Over the 12 weeks to June 11th, take-home grocery sales increased by 11 per cent, with consumers turning to shopping little and often to help manage household budgets.

The percentage of packs sold on promotion also increased to 25.8 per cent compared to 24.7 per cent last year, showing shoppers are carefully choosing promotional items to help them to make ends meet.

“Irish consumers enjoyed longer warmer days during the last four weeks and took the opportunity to crack out the barbecues,” Ms Healy said. “As a result, they spent an additional €2.9 million on beer and lager, €1.9 million on chilled burgers and grills, and €1.2 million on fresh sausages.”

With the cost-of-living crisis bringing change to traditional shopping and eating behaviours, people are also thinking more about what they eat and how they cook at home.

As shoppers look for easier meals with less waste, sales of total chilled ready meals shot up by 20 per cent with shoppers spending an additional €2.9 million year-on-year.

Over the 12-week period, the growth in sales of own label was put at 15 per cent and almost double that of brands as shoppers looked for ways to save money.

Own label saw the strongest growth, up 28.9 per cent year-on-year.

Dunnes, Tesco and Lidl all grew sales in advance of the total market in terms of value this month, with the gap in market share beginning to close between the top two retailers.

Dunnes continues to hold the highest share among all retailers at 22.9 per cent with growth of 15 per cent year-on-year. Tesco holds 22.6 per cent of the market with 13.5 per cent growth year-on-year.

SuperValu holds 20.7 per cent of the market and growth of 6 per cent.

Lidl hit a record new share of 13.7 per cent with growth of 15.5 per cent year on year while Aldi holds 12.3 per cent with growth of 10.3 per cent year-on-year.