The latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel, the market research and insight group, show that grocery market sales in Ireland continue to increase as greater consumer confidence is restored among Irish shoppers.

For the 12 weeks to the end of January 2016, year-on-year sales for the Irish grocery market grew by 3.8%, making it the strongest period of sales growth in the market since January 2009.

Georgieann Harrington, insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, says that Irish shoppers are spending more on their grocery shopping than this time last year.

“The increased consumer confidence we saw over Christmas has continued, with little indication that shoppers are tightening their belts after the festive period,” added Harrington.

Little change

In terms of market share, little has changed between the respective retailers with SuperValu still occupying the top spot among the big three with a 25% share of the market ahead of Tesco (24.5%) and Dunnes Stores (24.1%). The two German discounters hold a little under 16% of the Irish grocery market with Aldi taking a 7.9% share and a further 8% held by Lidl.

However, in terms of sales growth for the period, Lidl is far and away the highest performer in the market after it recorded double-digit sales growth for the fourth consecutive 12-week period. With a higher number of shoppers spending larger amounts than this time 12 months ago, Lidl saw sales growth of almost 12% for the period. Sales at rival Aldi increased by almost 3% for the same period.

Of the big three retailers, both SuperValu and Dunnes outperformed the market in terms of sales. Dunnes was the leading performer posting an increase in sales of more than 5%, while SuperValu’s sales over the 12-week period grew by 4.4%.

Tesco recorded sales growth of 1.1% for the 12-week period, which will be a positive for the British retailer after some difficult years trading in Ireland.

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Irish grocery market sales increase by 3.5% over Christmas period