Supermarket sales dip as lockdown eases but remain above pre-pandemic levels

Take-home grocery sales fell by 0.4% during the 12 weeks to 16 May 2021 as lockdown eased and people returned to eating out.

The decline was also due to exceptionally high sales during the first three months of the pandemic last year, said data and consulting firm Kantar, though figures remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.

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Shoppers spent an additional £3.8bn at the supermarket in the past three months compared with the same period in 2019.

People returned to buy more ready meals as they had less time to spend cooking, while mouthwash and shoe polish were in demand after socialising was allowed again.

“We’re seeing take-home grocery sales dip versus 2020 as people are able to eat in restaurants, pubs and cafés and can pick up food on the go again, grabbing a sandwich, for example, while they’re out and about at the weekend,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.

“While not captured in these take-home figures, on-the-go grocery sales look set to be a significant driver of growth for supermarkets over the next few months.”

Meanwhile, Britons feel more comfortable going to the supermarket as the vaccine rollout progresses, in fact there were 58mln more visits this period than in May 2020, with London trips up by over 25%.

The big weekly shop, which made a comeback last year as people tried to reduce time spent outside their homes, may have already become a thing of the past.

Basket sizes have fallen for three months in a row and the average price of a trip to the grocery store over the month to 16 May is £22.82, the lowest since March last year.

Online sales, instead, are still way higher than 2019 levels but fell back from 13.9% in April to 13.4% in the latest month.

In fact, () saw sales growth slowing down to 15.4% though it gained 0.2% of share.

and both grew ahead of the market, with take-home sales up by 5.2% and 4.6% respectively and market share reaching 8.1% and 6.2% respectively.

All four of the largest supermarkets gained market share, with Asda rising to 14.4% from 14.1%, () up by 0.7 percentage points and ’s () up by 0.3 percentage points. (), instead, remained flat.

Waitrose too won market share, up to 5.1% from 5.0% last year, with sales growing by 2.1%.

“The good news for households wanting to keep on top of their grocery spending is that like-for-like prices are lower than last year when fewer products were bought on promotion. This is the fastest fall in prices since August 2016, a trend we expect to normalise as the year progresses,” McKevitt concluded.

Ocado added 1% to 1,991.5p, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons remained flat at 265.1p and 178.8p respectively, while Tesco shed 1% to 225.13p on Tuesday at the opening bell.