At long last a spell of fine weather is expected for the next few weeks. It cannot come a moment too soon, with the unseasonably wet UK early summer putting a dampener on food sales, up just 1% in the past four weeks – the slowest increase since June 2022, according to the latest Kantar sales data out this week. While soup sales soared 24%, impulse categories in particular are suffering from withdrawal symptoms as last year the country was enjoying the hottest June on record.

Let’s hope the Euros also kickstart a more sunny outlook among careworn shoppers. As we head for the polls, the country certainly needs an excuse for a celebration – although interestingly, our annual survey with NIQ of Britain’s Biggest Alcohol Brands notes how retailers and brand owners are embracing the spirit of increasing moderation in modern society through tipples of various hues that are lower in alcohol, a trend new duty levels introduced by the government has also inadvertently encouraged.

Spirits will also surely be buoyed by the return of food price inflation to normal levels at last. The signs are certainly more positive, with the number of “comfortable” households doubling, Kantar’s data finds. The Kantar figures are interesting for other reasons, too. With Aldi having already overtaken Morrisons to force its way into a new ‘big four’, it’s only a matter of months before Lidl emulates the feat at the current run rate, up 40 basis points in the latest 12-week period.

With M&S also set to overtake Waitrose soon as it successfully targets the weekly shop, the state of the current grocery market makes a mockery of the Competition & Markets Authority’s conclusion at the time of the Sainsbury’s-Asda merger (just five years ago), that the big four were the only game in town, the discounters mysteriously dismissed as “weaker” owing to their smaller size and more limited range. Did the CMA not study the switching data? And while it rails against Asda’s decision to increase its fuel prices (without ever investigating the role of the oil majors), the thought occurs: is the super-competitive supermarket sector ripe now for a merger?

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