Discounters continue to surge

The growth of German discounters in the Irish grocery market continues unabated, with Aldi and Lidl on course to become bigger players individually than Superquinn in the coming months.

The latest grocery market figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published for the 12 weeks ending Apr 15, shows Lidl’s 6.2% market share ahead of Superquinn’s 5.7%. A 20% surge in growth by Aldi pushed it to a milestone 5%, fast catching up on Superquinn.

The good news for the sector is that it is back in growth albeit by just 0.6%.

David Berry, Kantar Worldpanel commercial director said: “Although price inflation remains a challenge for cash-strapped shoppers, with prices increasing by 1.8% this period, the level of inflation has continued to drop over the past five months — now standing at the lowest level for over a year.”

Aldi and Tesco show the greatest rate of growth at 20.5% and 4.9% respectively. Tesco’s share also remains at the record high of 28.2%, which was first achieved in January.

“SuperValu’s recent improved performance is building momentum and it’s now the sixth consecutive month of sales growth for the retailer. This has resulted in a noticeable increase in market share growing it from 19.4% to 19.8% in the past year.

“Shoppers have reacted positively to the recent launch of its own brand range, ‘SuperValu’, with 87% of all shopping trips to SuperValu including an own brand item, up from 82% last year,” Mr Berry added.

The data indicates grocery inflation stood at 1.8% for the 12-week period ending Apr 15, down from 1.9% in the previous period and significantly below the 3.5% seen in Nov 2011.