Discounters boom as credit crunch bites

Figures from TNS Worldpanel show the three discounters took a 5.9% share of grocery spending in the 12 weeks to 13 July 2008. They are also the fastest-growing sector of the market.

Aldi and Lidl’s year-on-year growth stood at 20% and 14% respectively.

TNS said this reflected their success in attracting more spend from hard-pressed shoppers, even though the majority of them still do most of their shopping at the major supermarket chains.

The total grocery market also continued to grow strongly, by 7% year on year, although this was partly fuelled by food price inflation.

Asda and Morrisons both enjoyed 9% growth, ahead of the overall market.

Tesco grew by 6.5% and Sainsbury’s by 5.6%.

TNS added that price inflation in grocery goods increased to 5.8% for the 12 weeks ending 15 June 2008.

Dry pasta rose in price by 40%, eggs were up by 34%, bread by 17% and milk by 14%.

At the lower end, tea increased in price by just 2% and frozen chips were down 4%.

Market shares
Second figure indicates percentage change

Tesco 31.3% +6.5
Asda 16.9% +9.0
Sainsbury’s 15.9% +5.6
Morrisons 11.3% +9.1
Somerfield 3.7% +3.8
Waitrose 3.8% +4.8
Iceland 1.7% +13.2
Netto 0.6% -0.4
Lidl 2.4% +14.3
Aldi 2.9% +19.5
Total Co-ops 4.3% +5.0

Total independents 2.6% 0.0
Symbol groups 0.9% +0.5
Other independents 1.7% -0.3

Source: TNS Worldpanel