Supermarket own label bread sales have overtaken Kingsmill's for the first time, reflecting growing retailer activity in the category.

The market share by value of own label bread for the year to July increased 3.7% to 16.7%, according to the Nielsen data cided in this year's Warburtons Bakery Review. Kingsmill's, however, fell 11.1% to 16% despite a £14m relaunch of the brand in February.

In a further blow to Kingsmill, Warburtons grew its market share 9.6% to 30.8% and was the only bread brand to grow its share across all 10 geographic regions of the UK. Kingsmill's share declined in each region - the sharpest fall being a 19% fall in the north east.

Kingsmill and Hovis, which saw its market share fall 3.2% to 24.5%, have been hit by the incursion by own label into premium territory. UK consumers were buying less value bread and trading up to more expensive seeded loaves, said the report. Sales of seeded loaves rose in value by 18.1% year-on-year to £166m and in volume by 10.8%. However, sales of economy bread rose just 0.4% to £24m while volume fell 9.6%.

Despite a 5.1% year-on-year fall in volume sales, white bread still had the biggest share of value sales, accounting for 54.7% of all bread purchases. Overall, total packaged bread volume sales fell 2.5% but rose 6.8% by value.

It was also a good year for bread rolls with consumer spend up 9.4%, despite the poor summer.

However, a spokeswoman for Kingsmill's parent company Allied Bakeries disputed the findings and claimed Allied brands had increased their market share to 19.8% since February -though she did not disclose Kingsmill's individual performance.

Meanwhile, Sarah Miskell, category director of Warburtons, warned it would be forced to follow Hovis' lead and increase prices to counteract soaring wheat prices. "We foresee a pricing increase on our breads and are going through talks with customers," she said. "But we are very pleased by our share growth in all areas of the UK. Southerners have really picked up on Warburtons thanks to retailer sampling and our TV campaign.

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