Grocery price inflation inches upwards again

In the four weeks to August 10, Irish consumers spent an additional €7.2m on alcohol and an additional €1.3m on suncare.

Irish grocery price inflation inched upwards again in the early weeks of August as consumers significantly increased spending on alcohol and suncare, new data from Worldpanel by Numerator shows.

In the 12 weeks to August 10, grocery price inflation ran at 5.86% compared to the same period last year. This is an increase from the 5.43% recorded in July. In January, grocery price inflation stood at 3.4%.

The data shows that in the four weeks to August 10, Irish consumers spent an additional €68.2m on groceries compared to the same period last year with take-home value sales rising 6.2%. However, this increase was seen even as shoppers visited stores less often, down 0.5% compared to last year.

Business Development Director at Worldpanel by Numerator, Emer Healy, said August was always going to be a busy month for Irish consumers with a number of high-profile concerts and festivals taking place.

As a result, Irish consumers spent an additional €7.2m on alcohol and an additional €1.3m on suncare in the weeks leading up to August 10.

“Shoppers also indulged in other ways, spending an additional €8.9m on take-home soft drinks and chocolate. With such busy calendars, it’s clear that shoppers needed a bit of an energy boost with nearly €1m more spent on sports and energy drinks compared to the same time last year,” Ms Healy said.

Over the last three months, consumers have spent €735m on promotional items, an 8.9% increase compared to the previous year. Key growth categories in this segment included alcohol, frozen and household all growing ahead of the total market for promotional lines.

The growth in brand sales are slowing, up just 3.7% compared to the 5.7% increase seen across the entire market. Own label products saw stronger growth seeing 6.3% with premium own label products up 14.5%.

Brands currently hold 47% value share of the total market with own label products at 47.1% value share.

Supermarket share

Dunnes Stores held 23.5% of the total market share of consumer spending in three months to August 10 with the company seeing sales growth of 6.3% year-on-year. Tesco was in a close second place holding 23.4% of the market.

SuperValu holds 19.7% of the market with consumers making the most shopping trips to this grocer, averaging 25.6 trips over the latest 12 weeks.

Lidl holds 14.2% of the market while Aldi holds 11.8%.

The data from Worldpanel by Numerator is based on over 30,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by Irish shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available.