Musgrave marketing director Ray Kelly has told Retail Intelligence that he expects the market to “get more aggressive”, following SuperValu’s rise to the position of grocery market leader.
According to Kantar Worldpanel data issued yesterday, SuperValu now stands on 24.9% market share, ahead of Tesco (24.7%) and Dunnes (22.7%).
“It’s a very cutthroat market right now,” Kelly explained. “Dunnes will respond. Tesco will respond. All market players have responded in different ways over the year, and this will be no different.”
Kelly added that while it was “nice” for the retailer to be recognised as market leader, “it’s not our number one objective. Our number one objective is that each of our stores individually performs – if as a result of that, we’re number one, well of course we’d be delighted with that.”
Kelly paid tribute to the group’s Food Academy programme as a “tangible and demonstratable proof of our support of all things local”, adding that he believes it will “differentiate” SuperValu from the competition over the coming years.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones