Grocery’s best Christmas in 4 years

The Irish grocery market enjoyed its strongest Christmas period — in sales terms — for four years, last month, with total combined sales rising by 1.1% on a year-on-year basis.

New monthly figures, from consumer insights agency, Kantar Worldpanel, show that the main multiples — Tesco, Dunnes, SuperValu, Aldi and Lidl— saw their combined sales grow by 1.6% on an annualised basis. The latst data covers the 12-week period up to January 5.

“Growing confidence in the economy meant shoppers relaxed the purse strings this Christmas, visiting supermarkets more often in the seasonal period than last year,” according to Georgieann Harrington, insight director at Kantar.