Take home grocery sales top £12bn in December as retail inflation slows

Take-home grocery sales hit £12.8bn over the four weeks ended 25 December, according to Kantar, the first time in history that sales have breached the £12.0bn mark.

Sales increased 7.6% month-on-month and 9.4% year-on-year, the fastest rate recorded since February 2021, with mince pie value sales up 19% annually and Christmas pudding sales increasing 16% in value and 6% in volume.

The rise came as grocery price inflation went down by 0.2 points in December to 14.4%, the second time in a row the rate has dropped. However, sales measured by volume are actually down by 1% year-on-year, showing the challenges shoppers continue to face.

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons accounted for more than two-thirds of all spending, while Aldi remained the fastest growing grocer with 27.0% growth - taking its market share up from 7.7% this time last year to 9.1%.

Elsewhere, overnight data from the British Retail Consortium showed that retail inflation in the UK stabilised at 7.3% in December, down 10 basis points versus the annual rate stated for November but still ahead of the three-month average of 7.1%.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com