UK supermarkets experienced their busiest Christmas trading period since 2019, as a record £13.7bn of sales went through the tills.
Consumers made 488 million trips to UK supermarkets over the four-week period to December 24 – that’s 12 million more than last year and the largest numbers during the Christmas period since before the pandemic.
A record £13.7bn of sales were made by grocers across the period, with the average household spending an all-time high of £477 during the month, up £28 on 2022, according to the latest figures from market researcher Kantar.
Kantar head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt said: “As we expected, this Christmas was a whopper. Friday 22 December turned out to be the most popular shopping day, when just over 25 million trips were made, and consumers spent £803m in physical stores – that’s 85% more than the average Friday in 2023.
“Online’s share of the market held steady at 11.6%, as nearly one in five households got a delivery in for the big day.”
Grocery inflation in December fell to 6.7%, its lowest level since April 2022, but Kantar said that many consumers were still left feeling the pinch.
“The rate of inflation is coming down at the fastest pace we have ever recorded, but consumers are still facing pretty hefty pressures on their budgets,” said McKevitt.
“Retailers were clearly working hard during the festive period to offer best value and win over shoppers, and promotions were central to their strategy. Nearly one-third of all spend in the four weeks to Christmas Eve was made on items with some kind of offer, the highest level since December 2020 and £823m more than last year.”
Traditional Christmas dinner favourites performed well over the period, with volumes of parsnips, sprouts and potatoes up 12%, 9% and 8%, respectively.
Festive meats, such as pigs in blankets, sausages, hams and turkeys, were up 6% collectively.
Supermarkets snap up share
Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose accounted for 70% of the grocery market share during the 12 weeks to December 24.
Sainsbury’s recorded its highest market share since December 2020 at 15.8%, while sales jumped 9.3%. Tesco, by comparison, gained just 0.1 percentage points of share to hold 27.6% of the market as sales grew 7.5%.
“The traditional retailers always tend to do well in the run-up to Christmas and this year was no exception. Supermarkets saw especially strong performances for their own-label lines, with sales of premium ranges like Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest surging by 11.9% compared with last year to hit £790m and accounting for 5.7% of all grocery sales,” said McKevitt.
The discounters finished the Christmas trading period with their highest-ever market shares for the period – Lidl grew sales by 13.8%, finishing with 7.7% of the market, while Aldi sales jumped 9.9%, ending up with 9.3% of the market.
Online purchases grew ahead of the market during the period, up 7.5% on 2022.
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