After successive periods of falling growth, latest data from Kantar shows the dairy market saw a slight improvement in the latest 12 weeks with growth at 1.1% (up from 1%).
The growth rate in the overall grocery market saw a similar marginal growth (from 1.3% to 1.4%), putting its performance slightly ahead of the dairy market. Volume growth in dairy sees a more impressive uplift to 1.5%, up from 1.1%
Kantar highlighted that there was mixed results across dairy sectors, and while almost all continued to see growth, cream, cheese, yoghurt and yoghurt drinks all saw that growth fall back on last period. Butter and margarine played a key role in the turnaround for the dairy market, with an additional £6.9m and £2.8m spend in these sectors during the period.
Of the retailers, Tesco saw the strongest improvement in contribution, with an additional £5.2m. Morrisons and the Co-op also saw uplifts exceeding £1m. Butter was again the key to growth for Tesco, boosting performance by £4.3m. This strong performance from butter was seen across all retailers, with the exception of Sainsbury’s, which saw a marginal downturn.
Retired shoppers are the group with the biggest uplift in spend change (up £5.3m) with less strong contributions from shoppers in the Empty Nesters, Pre-Families and Older families groups. Likewise more affluent ABC1 shoppers are spending strongly while C2DE see a downturn. Within the butter category, performance is strong across socioeconomic groups with only Pre-Families seeing a minor downturn.
In terms of promotions, Y for £X deals contributed to the market’s improved performance while the opposite is true for TPR promotions. Full price sales saw improved growth when it comes to the dairy market as a whole, and all price mechanisms contributed to the improved performance of butter.
