€528m spend on food, drink at Christmas

Irish consumers will spend an estimated €528m on food and drink this Christmas — over €100 a head. 

A survey carried out by Webloyalty found more than three out of four people plan to spend up to €20 per person on Christmas dinner, with the majority planning to do their festive food shopping in-store (70.1%). Only 9.1% said they would do all of their Christmas food shopping online.

The research found that when it comes to shopping for food at Christmas, discounters like Lidl and Aldi are less popular. Tesco is the number one choice (25.4%), followed by Dunnes (23.1%), SuperValu (21.9%) and Marks and Spencer (19.2%). Only 7.6% say they plan to shop in Lidl and 8.9% intend to food shop in Aldi.

A good, old-fashioned Christmas-themed present is still deemed an essential buy, with almost half saying they had to buy a box of chocolates such as the old staples Roses or Quality Street.

A third said Christmas tins of biscuits are a must-have, while just over a quarter said seasonal alcoholic beverages such as Baileys and eggnog are on their list.

Unsurprisingly, the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings is the most commonly eaten food at Christmas.