Edward Garner, a director at Kantar Worldpanel, didn't break out frozen food sales per se, but a month earlier he had cited the rapid growth of Iceland Frozen Foods: Iceland is growing at nearly twice the market average lifting sales by 6.3% this period. This is largely a result of the buoyant frozen food market, which tends to do well during times of economic uncertainty, and is currently the fastest growing grocery sector. Frozen food sales were up 6.1% to just under £5.4 billion for the 52 weeks ended March 18, according to the most recent report the agency did for the British Frozen Food Federation.
"We are seeing big cutbacks by consumers as they continue to respond to this current period of austerity," Garner said of the situation in general. The success of the discounters, Aldi and Lidl, is a clear example of shoppers watching their purses, with both retailers continuing to surge ahead. Once again, they both achieve all-time record shares of 2.9% and remarkable growth of 26.1% for Aldi and 11.5% for Lidl. Similarly, although Waitrose is still growing at over double the rate of the whole market, this growth has fallen back to 4.8% from 7.5% last period suggesting there are signs that the premium sector is beginning to slow."
Among the big four supermarkets, fortunes continued unchanged with market share growth for Asda and Sainsburys and share dips for Tesco and Morrisons. Kantar Worldpanel also said that by its measurement (75,000 identical products compared year-on-year), grocery inflation was 3.8% for the 12-week period, continuing a downward trend from a November 2011 peak of 6.2% and reflecting lower inflation for fresh produce and falling milk prices. Official ONS data on Tuesday showed overall inflation in the UK fell to 2.4% in June, its lowest in more than two and a half years.
