Supermarkets kept shoppers spending after Christmas by offering a raft of promotions as take-home sales rose by 4.3% in January.
Spending on promotions rose year on year by £274m, accounting for 27.2% of sales – the highest level in January since 2021, according to the latest figures from Kantar, published this morning.
Shoppers also traded down to own label to help keep costs down after the festive period, with non-branded’s proportion of sales hitting a record high of 52.3% in January. Spending on supermarkets’ own lines was up 5.4%, helped by consumers buying premium products in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve.
Grocery price inflation also eased over the four weeks to 26 January, slowing to 3.3%, down from 3.7%.
“Supermarkets were dishing out the discounts this new year, and consumers responded,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.
Attempts by shoppers to make a healthy start to the new year also helped boost supermarket sales, with more than 10% of the average consumer’s January grocery bill spent on fresh fruit, vegetables and salad, totalling £1.2bn – £193m more than in December.
Sales for protein products were 47% higher than last year, with more than two million households buying these items during the month.
And sales of low & no alcohol drinks were 7% higher than last January, and 6.7% of households bought at least one of these alternatives.
Nathan Ward, business unit director for usage and out-of-home at Kantar, added: “Rolling into the new year, health tends to play a bigger role in our grocery choices. Over a quarter of take-home food and drink in January is chosen with health at least partially in mind, as shoppers tell us they want to eat less processed food and feel the benefit of fibre and vitamins.”
McKevitt said: “It’s no surprise to see the low & no alcohol trend make its mark in January, but given some of the generational splits we have seen in grocery, it’s interesting that older shoppers are just as likely to take these products home as younger ones. Not everyone signed up for Dry January though, with 49% of people buying an alcoholic drink this month – but this is a pretty big drop from December’s 76%.”
Ocado remained the fastest-growing grocer for the ninth consecutive month. Spending at the online retailer grew by 11.3% in the 12 weeks to 26 January, meaning it now holds 1.9% of the market. Joint owner of Ocado Retail, M&S also saw a strong 12-week period of growth, with grocery sales increasing by 10.5% in its bricks-and-mortar stores.
Britain’s largest grocer, Tesco, gained the most share. Its 28.5% hold of the market is 0.7% higher than this time last year, and it also saw its fastest rise in sales since April 2024 at 5.6%.
Sainsbury’s outpaced the market at 4.2% sales growth, increasing its share from 15.7 to 15.9%. Morrisons has 8.6% of the market as sales growth remained flat, while Asda’s portion is 12.6% after sales slumped by 5.2% over the 12 weeks.
Lidl’s sales rose 7.4%, making it three continual years of growth for the discounter, whose share hit 7.2%. Aldi accelerated for the third consecutive month, with sales up 4.2% and its market share increasing to 10.2%.
Convenience retailer Co-op returned to growth, with sales rising by 0.8%, giving it a 5.2% share of the market. Waitrose maintained a share of 4.6% as sales climbed by 3%. Spending at frozen specialist Iceland was 1% higher, maintaining its share of 2.4%.
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