Panic over: Brits made 117m fewer trips to the supermarket this March
Brits made 117m fewer trips to supermarkets this month than in March 2020, which was a month that saw supermarket shelves stripped bare as consumers started panic buying ahead of the UK’s first national lockdown.
Grocery sales fell three per cent in the four weeks to 21 March 2021, while during the same period last year they grew 15 per cent.
This time last year Brits were adjusting to schools and offices closing, and were making extra trips to the supermarket to fill their cupboards for lockdown.
“To put that into context, shoppers made 117m fewer trips to the supermarket this month compared with those fraught weeks in March 2020,” said Fraser McKevitt, Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight.
Despite the recent fall in sales, grocery spending is still considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Online sales stood at 89 per cent higher than this time last year, though the grocery share of the market dropped back to 14.5 per cent from the record 15.4 per cent in February.
In the 12 weeks to March 21, Morrisons, Britain’s number four grocer was the best performer of the country’s four major supermarket groups, with sales growth of 8.7 per cent.
Sales growth at market leader Tesco was 8.5 per cent, followed by Asda, the third bigger grocer, with growth of 7.6 per cent, then Sainsbury’s with growth of 7.3 per cent.
German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl lost market share with sales growth of 1.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively.
Kantar said grocery inflation over the 12-week period was 0.9 per cent.
It said prices are rising fastest in markets such as canned colas, chilled fruit juices and chilled desserts while falling in bacon, beef and vegetables.