The arrival of warm weather and a gold-tinged Olympics feelgood factor has boosted British supermarket sales over the past three months.
The grocers enjoyed a 0.3% rise in sales in the 12 weeks to 14 August, the best performance since March, according to Kantar Worldpanel. The market analysis firm said sales of ice-cream and lollies jumped by nearly a quarter in the last month of that period, while chilled drinks rose by 10% as Brits sought to cool off.
Analysts at Nielsen said that sales rose at their fastest pace since November 2013 in the four weeks to 13 August, but only if periods boosted by Easter and Christmas were excluded. It said mineral water sales rose 18.5%, beef burgers were up 19% and beer, wine and spirits rose 3% as sparkling wine sales leapt nearly 14%.
The performance marks a bounceback from supermarkets’ worst performance in two years in July when cold, damp weather hit sales after the Brexit vote.
“The stellar Team GB performances at the Olympics combined with the hot weather, particularly in mid-July, helped supermarkets to their own personal best for some time,” said Mike Watkins, Nielsen’s UK head of retailer and business insight. “Brexit seems to have been replaced by an Olympic feelgood factor among shoppers and there were more visits to buy food and drink in the last four weeks than this time last year.”
Sales were not boosted by any sign of inflation despite fears that the fall in the pound against the euro would make importing food more expensive. Grocery prices fell by 1.3% in the three months to 14 August, the 25th consecutive period of deflation, according to Kantar.
However, analysts have previously said they do not expect food price inflation to feed through until the autumn when crops grown in the UK start to make up a smaller share of those bought in the supermarket.
Discounters Aldi and Lidl continued to out perform the rest of the market with sales up 10.4% and 12.2% respectively. The big four supermarkets all saw sales fall back, and with Asda the worst of the bunch as sales fell 5.5%. Tesco achieved its best performance in 18 months but sales still fell by 0.4%, taking its market share to 28.1%.
