NI grocery market now worth £3.7bn annually
NORTHERN Ireland’s grocery market grew by 3.5% to £3.7bn in the last year, new figures have shown.
That’s according to Nielsen’s new ‘scantrack’ system, which uses data from tills across Northern Ireland stores to measure sales at supermarkets and major food and drink retailers.
The service shows the value of the Northern Ireland grocery and ‘fast-moving consumer goods’ market — which includes soft drinks and toiletries — is now £3.7bn.
Supermarket multiples, which includes the likes of Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, account for 73% of sales and the convenience retailers 27%.
The multiples saw sales grow 3.7% year-on-year while the convenience sector saw a 3.1% rise.
The figures are for the 52 weeks ending July 15.
Grocery retailers and manufacturers in Northern Ireland will now have access to weekly sales data from Nielsen.
Matt Clark, Nielsen’s commercial director in Ireland, said: “Scantrack has effectively been the currency for grocery sales in both GB and the Republic of Ireland for years but now it will help Northern Ireland’s retailers and manufacturers to see how they’re performing, so they can improve and grow their business.
“Central to this is the granularity of the EPOS (electronic point of sale) data, which is provided on a weekly basis across both the multiples and the convenience channels.”
Meanwhile, separate figures show discount supermarket giant Lidl is again the fastest growing grocer in Northern Ireland.
Lidl now has a market share of 5.4%, behind Asda and Sainsbury’s at shares of 17.2% respectively.
Tesco is at number one with a market share of 35%.