UK customers made fewer supermarket trips the week after mandatory face mask rules were implemented, report reveals

The Kantar research showed the grocery market grew 14.4% in the past 12 weeks – a slight decline compared with last month. Shoppers are gradually returning to some of their pre-lockdown habits, including visiting pubs and restaurants which reopened on July 4 and have seen a boost to trade from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme. The scheme has led to a “significant uplift” in footfall at restaurants, cafes and bars, Kantar said. Alcohol sales continue to do well – up 28.3% over the past four weeks, booze is excluded from Sunak’s scheme.

Britons spent £9.7 billion on groceries over the past four weeks makes - the lowest since February, but still considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels as food retail appears one of the few industries to gain revenues from the Covid crisis. Industry bosses argue the extra costs of implementing social distancing measures in stores and hiring extra staff to cover absent employees have eroded profits.

Charlotte Scott, consumer insight director at Kantar, said: “Although the current average of 14 shopping trips per month per household is lower than it was last month, it is higher than in April and May, when lockdown rules were much tighter. So, while some consumers have shopped more often in the past month, the story varies in different parts of the country, with localised lockdowns and slower openings resulting in people making fewer trips in the North, the Midlands and Wales.”

Morrisons was the fastest growing of the big four grocers over the last quarter – with sales up 16%, ahead of Tesco, then Sainsbury’s and Asda which, with Waitrose, was the only major grocer not to record double-digit growth.

Online specialist Ocado is the fastest growing UK grocer, with sales up 45.5% and a market share of 1.8%. The retailer is readying for divorce from Waitrose after two decades selling its products, instead it has set up a joint venture with Marks & Spencer. Iceland, Co-op, Lidl and Aldi all saw strong quarterly sales growth.