What is it with everyone going crazy in December for groceries, including the retailers themselves? We all saw the 15p vegetables in Tesco, right?! At what point do retailers start giving it to customers free of charge just to get them in the door? Whether that tactic actually works and pulls in increased footfall/market share is, in my eyes, yet to be determined. I can’t help but feel sorry for the growers and producers who see their products devalued. Yes, they get increased volumes and presumably, for the most part, the same prices from the retailers. But the average consumer must question “Why aren’t they this price year round?” or “Are they overcharging us for the rest of the year?”
The latest data from Kantar headlines, ‘Household spending reaches new high as shoppers splash out on premium lines and festive fizz’.
It was found that household spending on take-home groceries hit a record high at Christmas at £460 on average and rose by 2.1% over the four weeks to 29 December compared with last year meaning supermarket sales surpassed £13 million during the 4 weeks of December.
Kantar states that the average household made nearly 17 separate shopping trips this December – the busiest month for retailers since the pre-lockdown rush in March 2020! I thought I was the only one who ran around like a headless chicken and failed on several visits to do “the big Christmas shop” to get all of the things I forgot on the first failed attempts. Whilst this stat made me feel better about how disorganised I was, it also highlighted what a fantastic opportunity the holiday period is for retailers and suppliers to grab the attention of shoppers and win/keep their business.
Category data shows the difference in generations, with those under 45s opting for a sausage roll, panettone, antipasti & party food while those over 45s accounted for the majority of Christmas Cake and fortified wine sales. “The seasonal biscuit, however, knows no bounds appealing across the generations”, how does this sit with your household & generation? There wasn’t a single biscuit consumed in the Edmondson-Matthews household over Christmas, so we must be in the minority there. Instead, we opted for a mixture of party food for the Christmas build-up and New Year and a traditional turkey roast with all the trimmings for the big day. NB I did want to cook a Beef Wellington as a main and avoid turkey but got overruled by my wife as the in-laws said the turkey was a must. If your Christmas dinner spans multiple generations and family members, as many do, I think the data has to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Read the full report form Kantar here.
