England’s early departure from Euro 2016 and the poor early summer weather both had a negative impact on sales of barbeque favourites, including sausages, which fell by 6.3% during the 12 weeks to July 17, according to the latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel.
The EU referendum result, meanwhile, has had “no immediate impact” on the prices retailers are charging or the sales volumes consumers are buying.
“The nation’s average shopping basket is 1.4% cheaper than a year ago, exactly the same level of deflation as reported last month,” said Kantar Worldpanel’s head of retail and consumer insight, Fraser McKevitt. “It remains to be seen if the Brexit vote will bring about any price rises later this year.”
The overall picture for the three-month period was one of “slow growth” for the supermarket sector, with sales up 0.1% compared to last year.
“Over the 12 weeks in question, beer sales did bring about some cheer for the grocers, growing 2.8%, ahead of the overall market,” said Mr Fraser (pictured above). “The impact was mostly felt prior to England’s early exit from the Euro 2016 football tournament, which brought with it a rapid reversal in fortune for sales. Beer and lager were also hindered by poor early summer weather, as were barbeque favourites like sausages, which fell by 6.3%.”
Among the individual retailers, sales at Tesco fell by 0.7%, which is actually the chain’s slowest rate of share loss since March 2014, while Sainsbury’s sales fell by 1.1%, reducing its market share to 16.3%.
Newly installed Asda chief executive, Sean Clarke, saw sales fall by 5.6%, while Morrisons sales fell by 1.8%, although this was the chain’s best results since January this year.
The Kantar Worldpanel figures showed discounter growth continuing, however, helped by a 5% increase in the number of shoppers visiting either Lidl or Aldi during the 12 week period. As a result, Lidl has reached a new market share high of 4.5% while Aldi is up to a record 6.2%.