Two-year low for grocery as spend declines

The grocery market has fallen by 1.3% — the steepest decline since Aug 2010 — in the 12 weeks ended Jul 8, according to share figures from Kantar Worldpanel.

Dunnes Stores and the Musgrave-owned SuperValu and Superquinn all lost market share in the Irish grocery market.

Of the major multiple retailers, only Tesco increased market share, which rose 1.7% to 28.7% in the period. Dunnes fell by 4.9% to 22.2%, Supervalu fell by 1.6% to 19.5%, with Superquinn falling by 10.1% to 5.5%

The business unit director at Kantar, Mark Thomson, said: “The economic situation has been tough in Ireland throughout 2012 and, consequently, consumers have been looking to control their spend at the weekly shop.

“Shoppers have spent €26.8m less at the tills than they did during this period last year as household budgets remain squeezed.

“This has also resulted in a 1.9% rise in sales of own-label products as consumers try to control their weekly spend.”

Mr Thomson said this trend is bolstered by the strong growth of discount retailers who predominately stock their own range of brands.

“Aldi and Lidl now have a combined share of 12.2% and are the big winners from austerity shopping, with respective growth rates of 22.5% and 3.4%.

“Tesco has also performed strongly, extending its market-leading share to 28.7% this quarter. This has been driven largely by good performance across key areas of the store such as fresh and chilled products,” he said.

Despite ongoing pressures on the grocery market and Ireland’s early exit from the Euro 2012 soccer championship, shopper spend on alcohol was up 3.6% over the 12-week period, with discounters seeing the biggest jump in sales.

Grocery inflation stands at 2.7% for the 12-week period, up from 2.6% in the previous period but significantly below the 3.8% seen in Jul 2011.