For both retailers, the strongest source of growth has been customers filling their baskets higher – each basket in Lidl contained on average two additional items when compared with last year, while Aldi’s baskets saw an increase of one item. Lidl has also managed to successfully win new shoppers, with an additional 40,000 choosing to shop with the retailer this year.

The figures from Kantar Worldpanel show a year-on-year growth in sales of 2.1% across the Irish grocery market.

“This is the most positive performance the market has seen in over five years,” said David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel. “The growth in sales this period was ahead of the rate of inflation, indicating that consumers are becoming less restrictive in what they buy and adding extra items to their baskets.”

With the countdown to Christmas now under way and seasonal items appearing on the shelves, intense competition means that consumers are already seeing a range of strong offers as retailers try to outdo each other on price and quality.

Strongest performance

Among the big three retailers, Dunnes posted the strongest performance this period, with sales growth of 4.7% increasing their share of the market to 23.2%. This marks the eleventh successive period of sales growth for Dunnes, as its ongoing Shop and Save campaign encourages shoppers to buy more items on each visit. Dunnes has also focused on price promotions this period, with products on offer accounting for 39% of all consumer spend in its stores in the past 12 weeks.

“Tesco retains its position as the largest supermarket in Ireland, with sales performance continuing to stabilise and market share standing at 24.5%,” said Berry. “SuperValu has seen an improvement in performance this period, bringing its market share to within just 0.1% of Tesco. This can be attributed to a significant increase in repeat shopping trips, with each shopper making an additional two visits to the retailer when compared with last year.”

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