Data from Kantar shows that the Northern Irish grocery market saw sales drop by 6.8% in the year to 20 February 2022, against a backdrop of supply chain pressures pushing up the cost of living and shoppers keeping a watchful eye on supermarket price rises.
Grocery price inflation in Northern Ireland stood at 1.9% over the 52 week period, a figure that is expected to rise in the coming months.
Emer Healy, Senior Retail Analyst at Kantar, commented: “With the majority of Covid-19 restrictions now lifted, people are really making the most of eating and drinking out in restaurants, pubs and café. As a result, sales over the latest 12-week period dipped by 6.4%. We also saw a 7.8% decline in the volume of items in shoppers’ trolleys, and the number of trips to stores dropped by 2.5%.
“A return to offices and busier routines has also meant sales of home cooking ingredients like flour, sugar and cake mixes declined by 16.1% as shoppers struggled to find as much time to cook from scratch as they did this time last year.”
Looking at individual retailers, Tesco maintained its lead position with a 35.7% share of the market. While its sales dropped by 5.3% against tough comparatives with last year’s lockdown period, the grocer boosted its market share by 0.6 percentage points this period.
Lidl was the only retailer to achieve growth over the past year and holds 7.1% of the market. The supermarket grew its market share by 0.6 percentage points as it proved a popular choice for shoppers increasingly watching their grocery budgets.
Asda’s share rose by 0.2 percentage points to 16.0%, while Sainsbury’s edged down to 16.9%.
