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Grocery inflation rose to another record-breaking high of 13.4% in the last 12 weeks to October 30, new figures from Kantar show today.

Kantar said that grocery sales for the 12 week period increased by 4.7% on the back of a 4.3% rise in shoppers returning to stores and an 8.7% increase in price per pack.

This contributed an additional €115m to overall market performance, it noted.

Kantar said the average annual grocery bill will go from €7,019 to €7,960 – an increase of €941 a year – if consumers do not make changes to what they buy and where they shop.

At a basket level, that marks an extra €3.80 on top of the cost of the average shopping trip, which currently stands at €28.20.

Emer Healy, Senior Retail Analyst at Kantar, said that Irish households are looking to manage budgets through a “little and often” approach to shopping.

“On average, families are adding one extra trip per month and we’re seeing a 9% increase in these smaller trips where less than €30 is spent,” she said.

“In comparison, the extra-large shopping trips where households spend more than €150 have declined by 4%,” she added.

Emer Healy also said that sales of own label brands jumped 9.4% over the latest 12 week period with shoppers spending an additional €115m year-on-year.

Own label now accounts for 46% of the overall grocery market in Ireland.

Value own label ranges saw the strongest growth, up 27% with shoppers spending €13.3m more year-on-year. Dairy products have the biggest market share (42.2%) within these value ranges.

“It’s interesting that shoppers are also beginning to seek out premium own label offerings as they move their out-of-home spend in-home as a means of controlling their discretionary spending,” she said.

“As a result, shoppers are spending an additional €5.3m on premium offerings, including spending an additional €902,000 on toiletries, €800,000 on fruit and €676,000 on chilled ready meals,” she added.

Kantar also noted that fewer people are stocking up for Christmas in October this year.

“This time last year 30% of Irish households had already purchased seasonal biscuits, whereas only 23% have this year. And this also rings true with chocolate as shoppers are spending €2.1m less on gifting chocolate and €1.2m less on seasonal chocolate,” Emer Healy said.

“The exception to this is mince pies, as consumers have already spent an additional €220,00 on these festive treats compared to this time last year”, she added.

Today’s figures also show that Dunnes has the biggest share of the market at 23.1%, growing by 7.8% on an annual basis.

Kantar said this growth stems from a 3.5 percentage point increase in new shoppers to store, contributing an additional €35.1m to its performance.

Tesco holds 21.9% of the market, up marginally compared with last year. Sales growth of 6.6% has been boosted by more frequent return trips by customers.

Kantar said that SuperValu had posted particularly strong results across the first year of the Covid pandemic. Today figures show the supermarket group’s first period of growth since April 2021, with sales up by 0.5%.

Meanwhile, Lidl holds 13.1% market share, growing 7.3% year-on-year as new shoppers in store and existing shoppers returning more often contributed a combined additional €17.7m to the overall performance.

Aldi holds 12.7% of the market, growing 3.5% year-on-year, with existing shoppers returning to store more often contributing to its overall performance.

Article Source: Grocery inflation hits new high of 13.4% – Kantar – RTE

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