Back-to-school shop drives lunchbox sales while grocery inflation slows – Kantar

Households stocking up on lunchbox essentials helped drive an uptick in grocery spending last month, while price inflation continues to ease across the country, figures show.

Grocery price inflation fell to 1.7% in August after rising in July for the first time in more than a year, according to data from analysts Kantar.

The back-to-school period saw sales of fromage frais, cereal and fruit bars lift 14% over the last week of August, compared with a year ago, while chocolate biscuit bars also jumped by 12%.

“The demand has picked up once again for lunchbox favourites as summer draws to a close and parents stock up ahead of the new school year,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.

Take-home sales across grocers rose by 3% in the four weeks to September 1, compared with last year, Kantar found.

The analysis covers the buying habits of some 30,000 households across Britain and does not include snacks and meals bought to be consumed on the go.

Looking at individual supermarkets, Kantar found that Ocado was the fastest-growing grocer for the seventh month in a row with sales soaring by 12.9%, the fastest since May 2021.

This outpaced the wider online grocery market where sales grew by 4.4% compared with a year ago.

Discounter Lidl’s sales surged by 9.1% with visitor numbers boosted through digital vouchers for its bakery products.

The lower-cost grocer has seen its share of the overall market edge up every month since April 2021 and now accounts for 8% of the market.

Asda, Britain’s third-biggest supermarket, lagged behind rivals with sales dipping by 5.6% and its market share 1.2 percentage points lower than the same period last year.

It comes as shoppers continue to be weighed down by worries about higher prices in supermarkets, after a prolonged period of higher inflation.

Mr McKevitt said: “Despite grocery price inflation easing back to 1.7% over the last four weeks, shoppers’ financial confidence hasn’t risen with it.

“Memories of the last two years remain strong, with nearly 60% of shoppers still very or extremely concerned about rising grocery prices.

“This is their second biggest financial worry, only behind home energy bills.”

“Retailers have been doing their bit to help shoppers keep the cost of the weekly shop down, and the proportion of sales on promotion increased year-on-year for the sixteenth month in a row in August.

“More than half of all grocery trips include some kind of deal, and this proportion rises as the trolley gets bigger.”