Dunnes Stores sustained its strong performance and held its place as Ireland’s largest grocer for the seventh consecutive period.
According to the latest grocery market share figures published recently by Kantar contrast to Aldi and Lidl, Dunnes’ growth has been driven by private label sales, which went up by 9.2% over the past 12 weeks, to 24 March 2019.
“Dunnes’ current run in pole position beats the five consecutive periods in which the retailer topped the charts between November and February last year. This goes to show that its appeal to shoppers is broadening beyond the key Christmas period when it has historically performed strongest.“ said Douglas Faughnan, consumer insight director at Kantar,
Meanwhile, Tesco and SuperValu recorded relatively flat performance compared with the rest of the market. Growth of 0.6% at Tesco was underlined by a strong performance in fresh produce, with fruit and vegetables up by 5.5% and 4.4% respectively.
Faughnan continues: “SuperValu has been impacted most by the late Easter this year. The Musgrave-owned retailer was number one this time in 2018 and typically performs strongly in the run up to Easter.
"The retailer also benefitted disproportionately from the adverse weather brought on by the Beast from the East 12 months ago, as shoppers topped up via their local and independent stores rather than larger supermarkets. The absence of such circumstances this year has likely contributed to SuperValu’s sales decline of 0.4%.”
Overall Growth
Overall, the research showed that the Irish grocery market grew by 3.2% during the period.
Despite Easter falling three weeks later than last year, and the absence of the extreme weather which provided an unexpected boost for some retailers in 2018, strong overall performance means market growth was only marginally slower than 12 months ago.
“If the early evidence is anything to go on, spring 2019 could be a bumper period for the Irish grocery market. The late Easter hasn’t stopped retailers promoting seasonal favourites – the holiday weekend is still two weeks away but already over half of Irish households have stocked up on Easter Eggs." He added.
“So far the grocers have been focusing their efforts on multibuy offers to encourage shoppers to splash out a little earlier than they usually would. This has proven successful to date: over €15 million has been spent on Easter Eggs in 2019 and 41% of these have been bought as part of a deal.”
St Patrick’s Day
Faughnan continues: “Alcohol always features prominently around St Patrick’s Day, and in the week to the 17 March sales of beer, lager and cider hit their highest point since the New Year," he added.
"This helped overall sales for the month to 24 March eclipse the €25 million mark."
With growth of 11.0%, Aldi was again the best performing retailer and now has a market share of 12.1%, breaking the 12% barrier in Ireland for the first time.
© 2019 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Donna Ahern. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
