UK supermarkets see coronavirus-driven sales surge

An additional 15m supermarket trips were undertaken in Britain in the week to March 17 against the same week a month earlier as awareness of the coronavirus crisis caused UK shoppers to stock up on supplies, according to market research company Kantar.

Average spend increased by 16% month-on-month to £22.13, Kantar said, as British shoppers spent more on groceries and less on other categories like clothes.

Kantar said supermarkets, which have had to introduce rationing to help cope with demand, took 51% of all retail sales, an increase of 7 percentage points on the same week in mid-February.

Only a minority of shoppers were stockpiling, with 6% of liquid soap buyers taking home extraordinary quantities, and only 3% of dry pasta shoppers, according to Kantar’s analysis of 100,000 shoppers.

While many believe hoarding is taking place, Kantar UK’s head of retail and consumer insight, Fraser McKevitt, said their data gave a different diagnosis.

“Temporary shortages are being caused by people adding just a few extra items and shopping more often —behaviour that consumers wouldn’t necessarily think of as stockpiling. People will also be eating in more as a result of social distancing and increased working from home,” he said.