“The poor weather resulted in shoppers making fewer shopping trips this year.  But with grocers increasing promotional activity, with 33 percent of sales this month being on promotion, we expect monthly growth going forward to be in the 4 to 5 percent range as food inflation continues to slow,” said Mike Watkins, Senior Manager, Retailer Services at Nielsen.

Of the top 9 grocers, Waitrose continued to perform well with double digit growth of 10.5 percent for the quarter and more than 11 percent in the last four weeks.  Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons continue to grow at the expense of smaller retailers, while Tesco has launched a new customer loyalty scheme to intensify the battle for shoppers.

“With shopper promiscuity increasing and loyalty levels falling over the longer term, the added benefits of Tesco’s Club Card 2 may do the trick in keeping Tesco customers loyal to the shop and ultimately spending more of their money there,” said Watkins.

Sales were strongest at large, out-of-town supermarkets, where 7% year-over-year growth was recorded.  In contrast, sales growth at large, centrally-located grocery stores slowed to just 1% year-over-year.

Food retailers who trade on value and price propositions also performed well.  Iceland saw 13% year-over-year sales growth, while Morrisons grew by 9.1% over the same three-month period last year. 

View the full press release.