Summer is kind to big supermarkets but Sainsbury's still lags

Overall, the grocery market generated £26.6bn of sales in the 12 weeks to 9 September, up 3.8% on the same period last year, research from Kantar Worldpanel revealed on Tuesday. This was helped by 2.0% grocery inflation.

Summer is a vital period for grocers, accounting for just under a quarter of sales each year.

Asda increased sales 3.1% as the fourth largest of the big four saw its market share contract just 0.1 percentage point year on year to 15.3%.

Morrisons, which released interim results last week, increased sales by 3.0% with its premium ‘The Best’ range a particular bright spot, growing around 12%. Its market share fell just 0.1 point to 10.2%.

Sales at Sainsbury’s rose at their fastest rate since December, up 1.6%, while its share of the market fell by 0.4 percentage points to 15.4%. Growth stepped up from the 1.2% in last month's report, improving from levels around 0.6% seen earlier in the year.

Market leader Tesco, which is expected to launch its Jacks discount chain this week, grew 1.9%, helped by smaller Tesco Express stores benefited from shoppers staying close to home in the summer, but group market share still shrank 0.5 points to 27.4%. The

“The warm summer has been kind to the supermarkets’ convenience format stores as consumers shopped locally for drinks and barbecue supplies, collectively growing sales by 7.6% compared to last year," said Fraser McKevitt, Kantar Worldpanel's head of retail and consumer insight.

“As speculation mounts over the launch of Tesco’s discount retailer Jack’s, it’s worth remembering how quickly rivals Aldi and Lidl have grown their market share," he said. "In the five years to September 2013 their combined market share increased by 2.4 percentage points to 6.8%. This growth then accelerated and in the subsequent five years the two nearly doubled their share to its current level of 13.1%."

In the past 12 weeks Aldi grew at 13.9% and Lidl by 8.3%.

Not far behind, online specialist Ocado grew sales 7.9% and Iceland grew at 6.0%.

Meanwhile, rival data from Nielsen for the past four weeks ending 8 September showed value growth slowed to 2.4% and volume growth fell back to flat. Many shoppers still being on holiday in late August also contributed to a return to normal for industry sales growth.