UK grocery footfall hits five-year high, but inflation weighs on spend

(Sharecast News) - The volume of groceries sold in the UK slipped over the past month despite footfall jumping to a record high, though higher prices lifted sales figures for the nation's supermarkets, according to data from industry research firm Kantar on Tuesday. Shoppers made 490m trips to the supermarket over the four weeks to 15 June, averaging nearly 17 trips per household, despite grocery price inflation surging to a 14-month high of 4.7%, up from 4.1% the month before.

That's the highest amount of grocery footfall recorded since March 2020.

"As the sun tempted more people out, fresh fruit sales were one of the biggest winners. Consumers bought 2,400 packs of strawberries every minute in the last four weeks. People are trading up to more exotic fruits too, with sales of mangoes and blueberries climbing by 27% and 10% each," said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.

Nevertheless, despite a jump in shopping frequency, the average trip spend edged 3p lower to £23.89, reflected in the 0.4% overall fall in grocery volumes compared with last year.

Kantar put the decline down to ongoing consumer concerns over price. "Sales of own label ranges grew at 4.2% this month, ahead of branded lines, as shoppers looked to balance their budgets. Deals also remain an important tool for retailers to offer value and the proportion of spending on promotion stepped up to 28.8% this period," McKevitt said.

The research firm also suggest that increasing use of GLP-1 weight loss drugs could also have been a factor, with the majority of users indicating plans to make healthier food choices. Kantar data showed that 4% of households in Great Britain now have at least one GLP-1 user, almost twice as many as last year.

Among grocers, Ocado recorded the highest sales growth year-on-year during the period at 12.2%, followed by Lidl (+11.2%) and Tesco (+7.0%). Asda and Co-ope were the only supermarkets to see sales declines compared with last year at -1.7% and -0.7%, respectively.