Consumers tuck into comfort foods to fight off bad weather

STEAMING bowls of hot vegetable soup and tasty casseroles are associated more with the winter months, but the continuing bad weather has sent consumers indoors in search of comfort foods.

Gravy, stock cubes, casserole dishes, umbrellas, and indoor entertainment items like TVs and stereos are all up significantly on last summer, while salads, paddling pools and barbecues are like a distant memory.

Retailers such as Tesco and catalogue shopping specialists Littlewoods are reporting higher than ever levels of online sales.

Wet conditions are prompting customers to eschew the outdoors in favour of ordering a variety of goods via the internet.

Littlewoods, which recently went through a rebranding process following previous guises as Kay’s and Family Album catalogue sales, said that online sales this summer have been strong, following years of success with telephone and postal sales.

In Ireland, sales have surged as a result of internet ordering, according to Littlewoods, following a pattern in Britain which has seen online sales heading towards 50% of the company’s entire sales.

Tesco’s online shopping service now has 200,000 registered users which is available to about 70% of the population.

According to communications manager Seamus Banim, online sales of Tesco items have gone from €18.8 million to €23.6 million in the space of a year in the Republic.

“It’s a growing trend and something that is becoming more and more popular with customers,” he said. “Online sales are strong at the moment.”

The retail giant has sold six times more umbrellas this summer than in the same period in 2006 while Mr Banim said that, in July, soups were up 25% on the corresponding month last year, with stock cubes 30% up.

Other sales surges which can be attributed to the bad weather include a jump in demand for slug pellets, while sales of sun cream have doubled as more and more families abandon the “mild” Irish summer in favour of hot climates. “It’s probably indicative of people wanting to go abroad,” said Mr Banim.

“A lot of non-traditional items that you would expect to sell during winter are selling during the summer.”

He quoted higher than normal sales of household appliances such as DVD machines, televisions and home entertainment systems, citing the need for parents to keep children happy in the rain during the school holidays.

Sales of barbecues and outdoor toys and accessories are said to be “static”.