Supermarket sales volumes fall in August says Nielsen
The volumes of UK supermarket sales in recent weeks fell for the first time since December, with Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrison all losing market share to discount stores.
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According to data gathered by Nielsen, grocery sales volumes shrank 0.3% during the four weeks ending 15 August compared to the same period a year ago, driven by declines in soft drinks, frozen foods and general merchandise.
The value of sales at the tills fell 1.1% the fourth decline in the last five periods, and up from the 0.4% increase during the four weeks to 18 July when the early July heatwave drove a strong few weeks for the industry.
All four of the big supermarkets lost market share during the period, with Tesco losing 1.2 percentage points to 27.9% from 28.4%, Sainbury's performing relatively well with just 0.5 lost to 15.9%, Asda losing a whopping 3.4 to 15.6% and Morrisons ending its run of growth with a 1.3-point decline to 10.8%.
Their share was gobbled up as discounters Aldi and Lidl increased their share by 22.6 points and 14.8 respctively. Aldi now has a 6.2% share of the UK market, according to Nielsen and together now account for 10.4% of all UK supermarket sales.
The last year-on-year decrease in supermarket sales volumes was in the four weeks ending 6 December, with the preceding print from Nielsen in July had shown volumes increased 0.2% for the eighth consecutive monthly year-on-year rise.
Nielsen’s UK head of retailer and business insight, Mike Watkins, said the disappointing growth figures in August reflected the "continuing unpredictable summer weather as well as the underlying deflation in retail prices".
“The week ending 25 July suffered from particularly poor weather with the value of sales down -3.6% against the same period last year, which was notably warmer and included the start of the Commonwealth Games.”