Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel: “What people pay for their supermarket shopping often impacts their spending across other parts of the high street too, including their eating and drinking habits out of the home. Casual and fast service restaurants especially have seen a decline in visitors over the summer, with trips falling by 6% during the three months to mid-July 2025 vs last year. The outliers in this are coffee shops, which have bucked the trend.”
Sales of branded grocery items grew by 6.1% this month, putting them ahead of own-label alternatives, which were up by 4.1% – the largest gap in favour of brands since March 2024. Branded sales now makes up 46.4% of all grocery spending but are particularly dominant in personal care, confectionery, hot drinks and soft drinks, where they account for more than 75% of money through the tills.
While a far smaller part of the market, premium own-label is also continuing to perform well, with sales rising by 11.5% during this period.
Looking at the performance of the leading grocers, Lidl and Ocado were tied for top spot as the fastest-growing grocers over the 12 weeks to 10th August, with sales at both retailers up by 10.7% compared to the same period last year.
Lidl’s share of the market increased by 0.5 percentage points to 8.3%, keeping it just behind Morrisons, which now controls 8.4% of the market after seeing sales growth of only 0.9%. Earlier this month, it was reported that Lidl is now the UK’s fifth-biggest supermarket in terms of food and drink sales, having overtaken Morrisons in July.
Tesco achieved its largest monthly share gain since December 2024, with its hold of the market increasing by 0.8 percentage points to 28.4% after delivering sales growth of 7.4%.
Spending through the tills at Sainsbury’s was up 5.2% on last year, taking its portion of the market to 15.0%. Sales at Aldi were 4.8% higher, giving it a 10.8% share.
Asda’s sales slipped 2.6%, but this was a slight improvement on the 3.0% fall last month, suggesting its turnaround strategy could be yielding results.
It was also another disappointing month for convenience specialist Co-op, with its share falling to 5.4% after a 3.2% decline in sales.
NamNews Implications:
NamNews Implications:
- Patently, there is money for premium, brand or own label, rain or shine…
- But the standout has to be dependence on inflation to maintain the ‘appearance’ of growth.
- (with obvious exceptions…)
- Meanwhile, the combined market shares of Aldi & Lidl at 19.1% has to be of concern to rivals and suppliers alike.
- And Tesco and Sainsbury’s continue to grow their share at the expense of Morrisons…
- …and an Asda racing against the clock.
