TNS’ ED GARNER REPORTS ON RECESSION AND UK RETAILERS
Ed Garner, Director Of Research, TNS worldpanel reports that the latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, published today for the 12 weeks ending 25th January 2009 continue to show how defensive the grocery sector is.
The market has lifted by 6.4% compared with the same period a year ago and since this period includes the Christmas and New Year festivities, it shows that business remained firm, regardless of what the shoppers were cutting back on in other areas of the High Street.
Having said that, as pure food price inflation remains above 8%, there are clear signs of trading down to lower price points, either within retailer (with retailers’ premium ranges under pressure and equivalent value ranges booming) or between retailers as this period’s figures continue to show.
Thus it is no surprise that Waitrose finds that growth is hard to achieve (despite their traditional Christmas uplift) with sales virtually static year-on-year resulting in a share decline from 3.9% a year ago to 3.7% now.
Tesco slips back again with a 0.5 share point drop to 30.7%. This is a reflection of their shoppers switching a lot of their spend out of Finest and into Value and Tesco Discount brands.
Both Asda and Morrisons have lifted their shares and seen growth of 8.1% and 9.7% respectively – well ahead of the market. To a degree, they have not altered their central value-for-money proposition in the recession, it’s the market that has changed around them.
It’s worth noting that Iceland had a very strong Christmas, reflecting their successful promotion of party food during the season and grew by 14%.
Once again, considerable growth for the Discounters with Aldi producing a class-leading 24.1% growth.
An update on inflation
Grocery price inflation has effectively stalled and the figure for the 12 week-ending period 25th January 2009 is 8.4%. Whilst a continuation of the falling trend may have been expected, Sterling’s decline has adversely affected produce and imported foodstuff prices.
This figure is based on over 75,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by British shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available. It is a ‘pure’ inflation measure in that shopping behaviour is held constant between the two comparison periods – shoppers are likely to achieve a lower personal inflation rate as they trade down or seek out more offers.
No more information.
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- BRC-NIELSEN SHOP PRICE INDEX AUGUST 2009 – SHOP PRICE DEFLATION ARRIVES
