The annual rate at which grocery prices have been increasing in the Republic continued to stabilise at less than 3 per cent over the 12 weeks to the end of last month, fresh data from retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel suggests.
The current rate of 2.7 per cent is dramatically lower than it was at the height of the cost-of-living crisis when it was close to 17 per cent, and represents a fall of 8.5 percentage points when compared with the same period last year, though it is slightly up on the 2.5 per cent rate recorded during the summer.
As families got ready for school in September sales volume increased by 3.6 per cent with the frequency of shopping trips climbing by 1.5 per cent, the data suggests and with households settling into utumn and back-to-school routines they spent an additional €2.6 million on fresh vegetables and €1.9 million on fresh fruit.
They stocked up on pantry staples, spending an additional €1.4 million on breads, nearly €1 million more on frozen goods, and €1.5 million more on soft drinks.
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Some shoppers got an early start preparing for the Halloween season, which was reflected in a significant €3 million increase in spending on confectionery.
“As shoppers returned to their back-to-school routines, they continued to purchase family-favourite brands [and] brand sales grew by 8 per cent compared to last year, outperforming own-label products once again this period, increasing their value share of total spending to 48.2 per cent,” said Eimear Faughnan, Kantar’s Worldpanel Head of Retail.
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She noted that even with branded products growing every month, own-label ranges also saw their value sales increase by 3.9 per cent this month compared to last year.
Online sales have increased by 9.6 per cent year-on-year, with shoppers spending an additional €17 million across websites over the period.
Retailers are driving this growth by offering attractive online incentives including money off vouchers and free delivery in some cases, which have encouraged shoppers to return more frequently.
When it comes to the store wars Dunnes holds 24 per cent market share, with growth of 9.5 per cent year-on-year, just in advance of Tesco’s 23.4 per cent share, a figure that is 10 per cent up in value terms year-on-year.
The two were level-pegging at 22.6 per cent in the August report.
Supervalu’s has a market share currently of 19.6 per cent down slightly on last month although it did see growth of 1.7 per cent.
Lidl is still ahead in the battle of the discounters with market share of 13.7 per cent and growth of 8 per cent compared to Aldi’s 11.7 per cent market share and growth of 0.6 per cent year-on-year.
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