News and Trends

Household spending on take-home groceries hit a record high this Christmas at £460 on average, according to our latest data.  Overall take-home sales at the grocers rose by 2.1% over the four weeks to 29 December compared with last year. It was a solid Christmas at the supermarkets with sales surpassing £13 billion during the four weeks of December for the first time ever showing people were clearly in the mood to celebrate and spend.  However, despite the festive cheer, grocery price inflation has ticked up to 3.7%, its highest level since March 2024. In contrast to reports of disappointing footfall across the rest of the high street, it was a very different story in the world of grocery.  The average household made nearly 17 separate shopping trips this December, delivering the busiest month for the retailers since the pre-lockdown rush in March 2020.  As anticipated, Monday 23 December was the most popular shopping day of the year, with sales a whopping 30% higher...

Tesco ,  Britain's  biggest supermarket group, kept its full-year profit outlook on Thursday as it reported a 4.1% rise in underlying UK sales for the key Christmas trading period, winning market share from rivals. Under chief executive  Ken Murphy  the group is reaping the rewards of a programme to improve the value and quality of its products, step-up innovation and enhance its customer service. "We delivered our biggest ever Christmas, with continued market share growth and switching gains," he said. Market Share Industry data published on Tuesday showed Tesco ended 2024 with a UK grocery market share of 28.5%, up 80 basis points on the year and its highest level since January 2016. Tesco, whose shares are up 23% over the last year, has benefited from a strategy of matching the prices of discounter  Aldi  on some products and the popularity of its  Clubcard  loyalty scheme, which provides lower prices for members. These programmes are being fin...

M&S said it enjoyed “another good Christmas” as its focus across food, clothing and beauty helped the  high street giant  to deliver its “busiest ever peak”. Total group sales rose 5.6% to £4bn in the 13 weeks to 28 December as food revenue jumped 8.7% to £2.58bn. Sales of new Christmas products grew 14%, while its core categories across meat, produce, grocery and in-store bakery grew double digits. The retailer’s ‘Remarksable’ value range saw sales surge 14% during the period. Clothing, home and beauty sales edged up 1%, or 1.9% on a like-for-like basis, ahead of what it described as “challenging conditions”. Online sales jumped 11.7%, representing 34% of total sales, which it attributed to “customer growth and improved availability”. The retailer registered a 1.5% fall in store sales, which it attributed to the wet weather. The retailer’s chief executive Stuart Machin said: “This was another good Christmas for M&S, building on a strong performance in the prior ...

 

 

  Waitrose   opened the doors   to its first new convenience store in six years today in Hampton Hill, South West London, marking the upmarket retailer’s 47th Waitrose-operated convenience shop. The new store, which features dedicated areas for ‘dinner for tonight’ and beer and wine, forms part of the grocer’s pledge to open up to 100 new convenience stores over the next five years in a  £1bn investment programme . In August, Waitrose executive director James Bailey said new store openings would represent a shop “tailored to the local area” and designed “in mind of how customers like to shop”. Other features include a fresh bakery area with products such as bread, cookies and croissants, as well as a hot drink station serving the Nero Roasting Company’s americanos, lattes and cappuccinos, with tea available too. The Hampton Hill store is also the first of Waitrose’s convenience sites to feature an on-demand hatch, allowing delivery riders to make collections more eas...

 

Life’s picked up speed, and work happens wherever there’s a Wi-Fi signal. For many, that’s changed the way we eat and drink. What was once called ‘convenience’ has become something more — flexibility. It’s more than grabbing something on the go; it’s about finding food and drink that can bend, twist, and fold itself into the unpredictability of modern life. Simple demands Across the globe, there’s a clear trend: people want their meals simpler, and more flexible. We’re talking about the ability to fit food and drink into a life that doesn’t follow a set schedule. Over three years, we analysed 3 million food and drink occasions across nine countries, breaking them down into 14 “moments of truth”. The ability to adapt to these evolving moments of consumption presents a significant opportunity for brands to differentiate themselves by being meaningfully different. The United Kingdom provides a good example of the wider trend towards flexibility. For Brit, there’s been a noticeable shift t...

  Take-home sales at the grocers increased by 2.3% over the four weeks to 3 November 2024 to reach £11.6 billion, making this the biggest sales month of the year so far according to our latest data.   The take-home sales rise coincided with a jump in the number of shopping trips made by households, hitting a four-year high at 480 million.  October 2024 was the busiest month for the supermarkets since March 2020, when people were preparing for the first national lockdown.  Trip numbers have been going up gradually for some time, but this steady march hasn’t reached pre-covid levels of shopping frequency just yet.  The average for each household is slightly over four trips per week. Early festive preparations drive sales boost   Halloween played a part in galvanising sales and there are signs that some consumers are looking further ahead in the calendar, starting their Christmas shopping early.  Many of us got into the spooky spirit last month...

  The Troissant is made from three mini-croissants assembled and topped with chocolate or caramel toppings. Since 1977, the Delineo group brand has been transforming its own emblem, the croissant, into a pastry that is more delicious than ever. It is not one but three mini-croissants that make up the brand new Troissant imagined by La Croissanterie. The puff pastry has been delicately twisted to give it a rounded shape, thus offering the consumer a new way of consuming the croissant, accompanied by gourmet toppings. For its first edition, the troissant is available in brownie flavor, with a caramel sauce or in caramel chouchou with chouchous and caramel as a bonus. Other variations are to come, La Croissanterie being determined to be the spearhead of creativity around Viennese pastries. "We are very proud of this innovation that reflects us. Le Troissant is part of the French baking tradition, closely linked to our origins and the sale of hot croissants in the 70s, and is also res...

The European food sector is undergoing a major transformation, with the boundaries between catering and retail blurring in the face of new consumer expectations for convenience. Supermarkets and restaurants are adapting their offerings to meet a growing demand for fast, high-quality ready-to-eat meals and solutions, redefining the market balance. The European food sector is undergoing a profound transformation, explains a report by Circana, which estimates that food and beverage purchases in restaurants and retail have amounted to €888 billion over the past year, with restaurant visits on the old continent increasing from 35.2 to 51.5 visits in four years. The analysis based on the CREST panel highlights a trend towards the erosion of the boundaries between RHD and mass distribution. It is in France that the market share of GMS for food purchases of solutions for immediate and personal consumption during the day is the highest (6.8% of the RHD market), which represents a growth of 17.5...