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Fresh figures on the grocery market show that supermarket sales increased in value by 1.4% year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 26 March as Lidl and Aldi achieved record market shares.

FOOD & DRINK

Insight: Lidl and Aldi achieve record high shares of the grocery market

4 April 2017 | by The Retail Bulletin

The figures from Kantar Worldpanel reveal that Lidl and Aldi now account collectively for 11.7% of the market. Lidl was the fastest growing retailer following sales growth of 15% which increased its market share to 4.9%. Meanwhile, Aldi upped its sales by 14.3% to take its share to 6.8%.

Slowing growth rates due to this year's late Easter meant that Morrisons was the only one of the big four supermarkets to increase its sales over the period with a rise of 0.3% although its market share dipped by 0.1 percentage points to 10.4%.

Sales at Tesco were down 0.4% which meant its market share dropped by 0.5 percentage points to 27.6%. Asda’s sales fell by 1.8% while sales at Sainsbury’s declined by 0.7% to leave their respective market shares at 15.7% and 16.1%.

Meanwhile, sales at Waitrose edged up by 0.3% which meant its market share was 5.1% in the period.

Looking at what shoppers are buying, Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Despite rising prices, we’ve seen shoppers’ minds turn to healthy eating after the excess of the festive period and before the temptation of Easter.

"Greater demand for gluten or dairy-free products, particularly from younger shoppers, has boosted the ‘free from’ category by 36% year-on-year. In fact, 54% of the population purchased a ‘free from’ product during the past three months – that’s 3.3 million more people than last year.”