Grocery price inflation hit its highest rate for more than a year as take-home grocery sales declined 4.5% in the three months to late January, according to the latest supermarket share data from Kantar.
Grocery price inflation hit 1.7% in the 12 weeks to 23 January, its quickest rate since October 2020, and despite the decline in take-home grocery sales year-on-year, sales still remain 11.2% higher than the same point two years ago, before the start of the pandemic.
"Life is returning to some normality in Ireland and grocery sales have dropped year on year as people take the chance to eat out in pubs, cafés and restaurants again. We can see the impact of these busier social calendars in people’s baskets," Emer Healy, senior retail analyst at Kantar, said.
"Many consumers have turned to convenience options as they juggle new routines, with an additional €14.5 million spent on chilled convenience this period. On the back of our new-found freedoms, sales of deodorant and men’s skincare have also soared 3.8% and 6.5% respectively as we aim to look and smell our best when seeing friends and family again."
The survey period coincided with restrictions tightening again and Christmas, with online grocery sales remaining strong as shoppers spent an additional 3.4% or €5.4m on digital orders that at the same time last year.
In Association with
Healy said consumers who had picked up the habit of online shopping were also slow to "switch back to the old ways of doing things," and shoppers who do go to the supermarket in person are buying 13.3% more on an average trip when compared to early 2020.
Elsewhere, Dry January saw a 7.6% of households purchasing non-alcoholic beverages, but Veganuary lost some of its lustre, with spending on frozen vegetarian products down by €481,000 year-on-year.
Dunnes Stores remains the largest supermarket in terms of market share (23.1%) and benefitted from an additional €42.2m in spending from new shoppers, with SuperValu (22.2%), Tesco (22.1%), Lidl (11.8%) and Aldi (11.6%) trailing behind.
(Pic: Getty Images)
