UK Food Retailers - comment

A case of déjà vu with the latest Cantor’s UK Grocery data. A record high 14.7% grocery price inflation since 2008, which its diverting sales from branded products, up 0.4% to own-label products (up 10.3%). The high inflation and lack of disposable income is also impacting early Christmas sales, with fewer people buying Christmas products early.

Aldi again was the fastest growing retailer, increasing sales by 22.7% to hold a 9.2% market share. Lidl also grows more than 20% to take its share to 7.2%. To put this in context, Aldi/Lidl combined were 4.4% 14 years ago and 16.4% today. Iceland grew slightly ahead of the market, with sales growing by 5.3%

The Kantar numbers confirm our view that the UK consumer is trading down to discounters, Iceland are maintaining and slightly growing their share and overall private label sales are increasing rapidly at the expense of branded products.