Our £6.5bn booze and snacks binge

Forget healthy eating - Britain is a nation of booze and soft drink guzzlers, crisp munchers and chocolate scoffers, figures showed yesterday.

Supermarket shoppers spent more than £5.1billion on beer and lager, wine, and spirits in the past year - accounting for three of the four biggest food and drink categories.

Wine was the top selling category, up 17 per cent to £1.915billion.

Soft drinks came second thanks to £1.9billion sales, with Diet Coke the most popular brand.

Beer and lager came third with sales of £1.8billion and Stella Artois the leading lager. Spirits was the fourth biggest category.

Chocolate was in fifth place with sales of nearly £1.4billion, according to analysts Taylor Nelson Sofres. The Cadbury range sold the most.

The best-selling brand of all was Walkers crisps, with supermarket sales up 12 per cent to £535million in a year. Snack sales were worth £860million.

Its upmarket Sensations line saw sales jump by 55 per cent to almost £45million.

The Australian producer Hardys was the most popular wine brand and the fastest growing in the top 50, with sales up 41 per cent.

Craig Smith, editor of Marketing magazine, which published the study, said the increase in the value of wine sales was due to consumers spending more on each bottle.

'What is true for wine is true for crisps, lager and dog food. In every significant category a desire for premium products is driving growth.'