Stock levels in Tesco for essential items like pasta, rice and noodles (-5.1%), toilet paper (-11.8%) and tinned and jarred products (-4.5%) declined by 2.3% overall in the week ending 12 April, a contrast to the high stock levels a week ago, reveals latest data from Edge by Ascential.
Kitchen towels have seen the largest decrease in availability (-21.4%), with rice (-13.3%), toilet paper (-11.8%) and tinned veg (-10.7%) also witnessing a decline.
Moreover, Edge by Ascential found that UK supermarkets experienced a significant decline in stock levels of Easter eggs in the week ending 12 April 2020, with unavailability peaking at 52% during this week, 15% higher than Easter Sunday in 2019.
It also found supermarkets promoted 63% of their Easter confectionery range, compared to just 40% in 2019. Morrisons and Ocado were the retailers most affected by low stock levels, with both retailers having an average of 90% and 83% out of stock respectively during this week.
Meanwhile, the data suggests that the warm weather over the Easter weekend did not have a significant impact on stock levels for BBQ-related food and drink, with availability decreasing slightly across chilled burgers (-1.6%), sausages (-1.3%) and alcohol such as beers, lager and cider (-1.4%) and white (-1.4%) and red wine (-1.3%). However, there was a slight increase in demand for frozen burgers and meatballs, which saw a peak in unavailable products between 7 and 10 April where almost 25% of the category was out of stock across retailers.
Edge by Ascential has found that stock levels across retailers have become more stable compared to the last few weeks, which were heavily impacted by stockpiling amid the coronavirus outbreak. However, the rising stock levels are not consistent across specific categories in all supermarkets.
In the week ending 12 April, unavailability in Waitrose fell by more than 5%, with stock increasing in coffee and frozen foods in particular. Cereal and kitchen towels were the most replenished products across most retailers over the week, noticeably for Morrisons, Tesco and Waitrose (where 20% of cereals came back in stock).
However, key shelf-stable food products such as baked beans, dry pasta and tinned pasta continued to see rising levels of unavailability since the end of last week.
Chris Elliott, Insight Manager at Edge by Ascential, commented: “Easter eggs appear to have been flying off the shelves this year. This is partly due to lower stock levels across supermarkets, as they focus on stocking shelves with more high in demand items. However, we’ve also noticed that there have been significantly more promotions around these items than in 2019. With shoppers encouraged to go out less and only visit stores for necessities, there is less time for them to browse as well as buy impulsively. This has meant that extra promotions have been needed in order to clear stock during these trying times.”
He added: “The warm weather over the Bank Holiday weekend could have also tempted shoppers to spend more on food and drink, as they celebrated outside with barbeques in the garden. However, there has not been a significant rise in demand for barbeque-related items, as stock levels have not moved significantly during this time, apart from frozen foods. Moreover, we have noticed that since the start of the month out of stock barbeque products have grown across Argos, John Lewis, Very and Wickes, peaking at 40% on Saturday 11 April. This might suggest that consumers are stocking up and preparing now, and waiting for a more suitable time to enjoy a barbeque, perhaps with friends and extended family once the lockdown is lifted.”
NAM Implications:
- Key for suppliers to compare their business, category by category, with these survey results…
- …and optimise strengths…
- …as we work towards our definition of ‘normal’.
