Record Christmas supermarket sales as lockdown curbs spending elsewhere

Customers spent £11.7bn on food and drink in December, the largest month of sales for grocers ever, according to Kantar’s latest supermarket share data.

The data said the forced closure of pubs and restaurants across much of the UK due to coronavirus restrictions kept the grocery tills ringing with people forced to celebrate Christmas at home.

Customers also chose to treat themselves to more expensive foods than normal, Kantar said. 

The £11.7bn figure beats the previous £10.9bn record set for grocery sales in November when ramping up of restrictions led to similar forces in the market. 

Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt said: “December is always an incredibly busy time for supermarkets, but take-home grocery shopping is usually supplemented by celebrations in restaurants, pubs and bars – with £4 billion spent on food and drink, excluding alcohol, out of the home during the normal festive month. 

“This year, almost all those meals were eaten at home and retailers stepped up monumentally to meet the surge in demand.”

In terms of market share, Tesco saw overall sales grow 11.1% in the 12 weeks to December 27 to £8.9bn, representing 27.3% of the market. Sainsbury’s sales grew 10.7% to £5.1bn, Asda 7.6% to £4.6bn and Morrisons 13.1% to £3.4bn. 

In terms of the fasting growing grocer overall, Ocado saw sales for the period jump 36.5%, while Lidl saw sales grow 15.2% off the back of its Lidl Plus voucher scheme rollout. Fellow discounter Aldi saw sales growth 6.3%. 

With uncertainty remaining in mid to late December over a Brexit deal and snags at Dover and Calais with the emergence of the new Covid variant in the UK, Kantar said that many consumes bought their Christmas shopping forward, with December 21 being the busiest day of the period. 

McKevitt said: “15 million households, more than half the entire population, visited a grocer at some point that day and spent a collective £819m. This is a real step change from recent years when consumers have typically completed their ‘big shop’ closer to Christmas Day.”

In keeping with the overall growth of online food shopping seen during the last nine months, grocers saw their best ever digital Christmas as well. Kantar said that 12.6% of all grocery spend for the festive period was online, compared to just 7.4% the previous year. 

Food availability was “absolutely fine” despite warnings of Brexit-induced shortages, Kantar said.

All supermarkets, discounters and convenience stores by in-large experienced an increase in sales during 2020. Morrisons is set to update on Christmas trading tomorrow, a week ahead of its rivals.