By James Davey and Sachin Ravikumar
LONDON (Reuters) - British shoppers faced increased pressure on their budgets in November after grocery price inflation edged higher for the third month in a row, industry data showed on Tuesday.
Market researcher Kantar said annual grocery price inflation was 2.6% in the four weeks to Dec. 1, up from 2.3% in the previous four-week period.
Prices are rising fastest in products such as toothbrushes, chilled smoothies and juices and fragrances, and falling fastest in items like household paper products and dog food, it said.
UK supermarkets have warned that tax rises in the Labour government's first budget in October, together with another rise in the national minimum wage, will be inflationary.
Official data published last month showed overall UK inflation jumped to 2.3% in October. Data for November will be published Dec. 18.
Kantar said Britons will have to pay more for their traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, with the average cost for four rising to 32.57 pounds ($41.51), up 6.5% from 2023.
Its data showed UK grocery sales increased 2.5% over the four weeks to Dec. 1 year-on-year, and the researcher forecast supermarket sales would exceed 13 billion pounds over the four weeks of December for the first time.
Kantar said sales at market leader Tesco (OTC: TSCDY ) rose 5.2% over the 12 weeks to Dec. 1, giving it a grocery market share of 28.1%, its highest since December 2017. Tesco shares were up 1.2%.
Sales at No. 2 Sainsbury (LON: SBRY )'s were up 4.7%, and were up 2.1% at No. 4 Aldi and up 2% at No. 5 Morrisons.
However, No. 3 Asda was again the industry laggard with sales down 5.6% and a 1.1 percentage point loss of market share over the year, underlining the tough job facing Allan Leighton, who recently returned to the group as executive chairman.
Kantar said online supermarket Ocado (LON: OCDO ) was the fastest growing grocer with sales up 8.7%, while discounter Lidl was the fastest growing bricks-and-mortar grocer with sales up 6.6%.
The researcher noted that Marks & Spencer (OTC: MAKSY ) was also performing well though it was not included in its data.
UK supermarkets' market share and sales growth (%)
Market share Market % change in
12 wks to share 12 sales
Dec. 1 2024 wks to Dec. (yr-on-yr)
3
Tesco
28.1 27.4 5.2
Sainsbury's
15.9 15.6 4.7
Asda
12.3 13.4 -5.6
Aldi
10.3 10.3 2.1
Morrisons
8.6 8.7 2.0
Lidl
7.7 7.4 6.6
Co-operative
5.5 5.7 -1.1
Waitrose
4.4 4.4 2.6
Iceland
2.2 2.2 2.2
Ocado
1.8 1.7 8.7
($1 = 0.7846 pounds)