Supermarket prices rise at their fastest rate in a decade
Customers are now turning to cheaper products and supermarkets
Last updated 29th May 2022
The inflation of supermarket prices over the past four weeks have risen at their fastest rate in nearly a decade, according to new data by Kantar.
This has meant that, on average, prices are 5.2% higher than they were a year ago.
As a result of this, Kantar revealed that customers are more frequently buying supermarket own-brand labels and making fewer food shopping trips to save on petrol costs.
Households are also making fewer trips to the supermarket, averaging 15.4 visits to the last month, compared with 15.6 trips in March 2021.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insights at Kantar, said: "More and more we're going to see consumers take action to manage the growing cost of grocery baskets.
"Consumers are increasingly turning to own-label products, which are usually cheaper than branded alternatives.
"Own-label sales are down in line with the wider market but the proportion of spending on them versus brands has grown to 50.6%, up from 49.9% this time last year."
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However, despite prices being higher in stores, Kantar revealed that total supermarket sales fell on average 6.3% in the past 12 weeks compared with a year ago.
On why this is happening, the head of retail told us: "What we're really starting to see is the switch from the pandemic being the dominant factor driving our shopping behaviour towards the growing impact of inflation, as the cost of living becomes the bigger issue on consumers' minds.
"Higher fuel prices could be playing a role here too as people try to save petrol by visiting the supermarkets less often - something for us to keep a close eye on over the coming weeks."
According to Kantar data, petrol prices and the pandemic have also has an impact on online shopping, with online sales making up 12.6% of total sales in March, compared with just 8% three years ago.
Customers have also been drawn more to cheaper supermarkets Aldi and Lidl, with both supermarket giants seeing sales up 3.6% over the past 12 weeks, compared with a year ago.
This has pushed Aldi to its biggest market share in the UK to date, with 8.6%. Lidl's market share also hit 6.4%.
On the flip side, supermarkets Asda and Morrisons have seen sales drop 9.9% and 11.5% respectively, significantly denting their market share.