Kantar/Bord Bia data for the 12 months ending 5 September shows strong retail sales continuing as COVID-19 restrictions continue to be relaxed.

The volume of beef sales have increased by 3% through retail outlets over the past year, with the value increasing by 5.1%, reflecting the increase in cattle prices filtering through.

For lamb, there was a drop in volume consumers purchased by just under 8%, but the spend increased by almost 8%.

This shows high lamb prices mean shoppers bought less, while at the same time spending more.

It has been a good year for pigmeat retail sales, with the volume bought by Irish shoppers up 9.6%, spending 11.2% more in the process.

Overall, the grocery market is performing strongly, and while sales are back 2.3% for the 12 weeks ending 5 September, it is still running 11% ahead of the same period in 2019.

The other notable feature of the past quarter is a drop in online grocery sales of 12.3%.