Sales of hand sanitiser, bottled water and tinned goods soared in the 10 days after the UK Government launched its 'Be Ready' campaign, which urged households to stockpile three days of essentials in case of severe weather or cyber attacks. Grocery price inflation also edged up again in October, reaching 2.6%.
Campaign drives sales of essentials
The 'Be Ready' campaign, launched on October 22, recommended that people keep bottled water, tinned food, and torches with spare batteries at home, and advised parents of babies to store nappies, wipes and baby formula. In the 10 days following the launch, sales of hand sanitiser increased by 83% compared with the same period last year, while sales of bottled water rose 67% and tinned and jarred goods were up 37%.
The number of people buying tinned meat each day after the campaign launch rose by 43%, equivalent to an extra 400,000 shoppers a day, yet the typical amount bought remained at about 500g, suggesting households are gradually stocking their cupboards rather than bulk-buying.
Price inflation and shopper response
Supermarket prices are now 2.6% higher than a year ago, up from 2.5% last month, according to data from Worldpanel by Numerator. Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel, said: "While prices are rising at a slower rate than at the beginning of the year, the direction of travel has changed."
"Household budgets have already taken a hit after the latest increase to the energy price cap arrived with the cold weather in October, and shoppers will be keeping a close eye on prices at the tills this winter," he added. Mr McKevitt also noted: "Shoppers clearly took notice of the Be Ready campaign, but this wasn't panic buying, with less than a third of households buying bottled water in October."
"Growth came from more people adding the recommended items on the Government's checklist to their weekly shop, not from shoppers piling their trolleys high, which is very much in line with what the Government wanted households to do," he said.
Retailer performance
Sales at online-only grocer Ocado grew by 12.3% over the 12 weeks to November 1, reaching a record market share of 2.3%. Marks & Spencer, which part owns the Ocado retail business, increased grocery sales through its stores over the same period by 14.6%.
Spending through the tills at Lidl increased by 6.6%, resulting in a market share gain of 0.4 percentage points, the greatest of any retailer, handing it 8.6% of all sales. Waitrose was the third retailer to increase share compared with last year, moving up to 4.5% from 4.4% as sales rose by 2.2%.
Sales at Morrisons rose by 2%, slightly ahead of the market, delivering a market share of 8.3%, while Tesco and Sainsbury's took 27.8% and 15.5% shares respectively. New Asda chief executive David Potts started his role with a market share of 11.3%, as more than half of households shopped in its stores or online over the last three months.
Sales were up by 0.4% at Aldi, Britain's fourth largest grocer, taking share to 10.4%, while Co-op's sales were 0.7% higher than a year ago to give it 5.3% of the market. Sales of pumpkins were up 10% year on year as households prepared for Halloween, while sales of tubs of sugar confectionery were up 28% compared with last year.
