Supermarkets experienced their busiest Christmas period since 2019, boosted by promotions, new research suggests. Customers made 488 million grocery trips in the four weeks to 24 December, according to research firm Kantar.
Some £13.7bn passed through the tills, even as food price inflation fell to 6.7% in December – the fastest drop Kantar said it had ever recorded.
Although British households spent £477 on average, many still feel “pretty hefty pressures on their budgets”.
Kantar described Christmas trading as “a whopper”, with Friday 22 December the most popular day when just over 25 million trips to stores were made. It said appetite for traditional Christmas dinner items was particularly strong in 2023, with volumes of parsnips, sprouts and potatoes up, along with festive meats including pigs in blankets, sausages, hams and turkeys.
“We’re creatures of habit when it comes to Christmas and our data shows that the classic festive plate remains much the same,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar. However, “mince pies and Christmas puddings did buck the trend. They were less popular this year,” he added.
Recent BBC research found the price of mince pies had risen by 25%, with bakers facing pressure from higher wage, packaging and production costs.
Mr McKevitt said retailers used promotions to entice shoppers over the festive period with nearly a third of all the money spent on items with some kind of offer.
Overall, the average household spent £28 more on groceries across than month than in December 2022, with the number of items bought up by 2%.
In the battle for customers, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl all grew their market share. Sainsbury’s reached its highest market share since December 2020 at 15.8%, pushing up its sales by 9.3%. Tesco now holds 27.6% of the market and grew its sales by 7.5%.
“The traditional retailers always tend to do well in the run up to Christmas and this year was no exception,” said Mr McKevitt. “Supermarkets saw especially strong performances for their own-label lines, with sales of premium ranges like Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest surging by 11.9% compared with last year to hit £790m – accounting for 5.7% of all grocery sales.
On Tuesday, however, rival discount supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl reported “record” Christmas trading, boosted in particular by demand for more affordable luxury items like beef rib or macarons.
The British arm of Aldi said that sales topped £1.5bn for the first time in the four weeks to Christmas Eve, while rival Lidl claimed its best Christmas yet since it entered the British market in 1994.
Analysts suggested that as costs remain elevated, it was little surprise that stores were reporting higher takings.