The credit crunch has affected Britons’ shopping habits, with sales of household cleaning products and fresh fruit and vegetables among the categories affected, according to research by price comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk.
Over the past year, sales of household cleaning products have fallen by 16%, while sales of fresh fruit and vegetables are down 8% and 7% respectively. Sales of fruit juice fell by a massive 17%.
Among the winners were the crisps and snacks category, where sales rose by 12%, and frozen pizza, which saw a 6% upturn. “People appear to be comfort-eating their way through the downturn,” said mySupermarket.
In BWS, white wine sales jumped by 9%, replacing champagne and sparkling wine, which saw sales tumble by almost a quarter.
These results come as the latest analysis from mySupermarket shows the price of the average shopping trolley has risen by only 13p over the last month and is now 7% dearer than it was 12 months ago.
MySupermarket said: “These changes suggest food prices are steadying out, which is good news for shoppers. Yet it is possible to see the correlation between prices and sales – the fruit and vegetable items from the trolley have risen by an average of 20% with sales falling by 7.5%.
Jonny Steel, spokesperson for mySupermarket, said: “Over the past year shoppers have faced unprecedented rises in their cost of their grocery bills and whilst the latest figures from mySupermarket show that we may now be over the worst of it, it’s clear that people have changed their habits and have had to make sacrifices to beat the increases.
“It’s possible to see direct correlations between the sharpest rising prices and their equivalent sales – fruit and vegetables have shown huge jumps in prices and now we can see that the sales have since fallen.”
