Dunnes, Lidl up ante in grocery wars

Competition in the retail grocery market intensified in the last quarter, with Tesco continuing to narrow its sales declines, Dunnes closing the gap on its rivals, and the German discounters maintaining their combined record high share of the market.

New data covering the 12 weeks to August 16 was published yesterday by leading consumer insights agency Kantar Worldpanel.

It showed that Tesco Ireland’s till sales fell 1%, on a year-on-year basis; the lowest quarterly decline for some time, while those of SuperValu dipped 0.8%.