Pandemic fuels huge increase in grocery sales to tune of £15.2bn

LOCKED DOWN Britons topped up their groceries to the tune of £15.2bn over the past year, according to new data.

The latest figures from Kantar show take-home grocery sales rose by 12.5 per cent during the 12 weeks to February 21, 2021.

Sales were even stronger over the past month, increasing by 15.1 per cent, the fastest rate of growth since June 2020.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “The pandemic has now been making its mark on our lives and completely changing the way we shop for a full year. Various hospitality restrictions mean that we’ve eaten an extra seven billion meals at home since spring 2020.

“Office tea rounds meanwhile were replaced by brews in our own kitchens and we drank an additional two billion cups of tea in the house this year.

“Overall, shoppers have spent £15.2bn more on groceries during the pandemic – that’s around £4,800 per household on average.

“But we weren’t buying more of everything.

“With fewer social occasions in the diary, personal care has fallen down the agenda and spending on toiletries dropped by 1 per cent.”

Online grocery sales reached a new record share in the four weeks to February 21, accounting for 15.4 per cent of sales, up from 8.7 per cent last year.

Mr McKevitt said: “Nearly a quarter of households bought groceries online during the past month, making the most of home deliveries especially to get hold of bulkier goods like canned foods, breakfast cereals and soft drinks.

“It’s been an extraordinary twelve months for online and three million tonnes of food alone have been delivered to people’s homes over the past year.

“It’s a habit that seems to be sticking among British consumers and internet orders now make up an average of 65 per cent of grocery spending each month for people who do shop online.”

Bradford-based Morrisons also won market share, taking an extra 0.1 percentage points to reach 10.3 per cent of the market, with sales up by 13.9 per cent.

Asda sales were 10.3 per cent higher compared with a year ago.

Tesco grew its market share to 27.4 per cent.