Research from Kantar Worldpanel has shown that the British grocery market registered a return to slow growth as post-New Year health kicks resulted in a strong performance across fresh foods.

Fruit and vegetable sales did particularly well in January as both saw growth of 5 per cent. Given that they were still experiencing like-for-like deflation, it was a significant revenue growth for both categories, shared across both traditional and discount retailers. Fish, fresh poultry, and nuts all saw similar growth statistics, as the overall grocery market growth has been slight (0.2 per cent).

The Co-operative was the fastest growing traditional retailer for the first time since 2011, with an increase in sales of 1.4 per cent. Registering a 7 per cent growth in its own label sales, the grocer did especially well in the fresh and chilled parts of their stores. The Co-operative was the most frequently visited major supermarket, with customers shopping there on average almost 19 times over the past 12 weeks, ahead of the market average of 11 visits.

Sainsbury’s increased sales for the sixth period in a row, growing by 0.6 per cent, whilst Tesco posted its best numbers since September of last year. Waitrose enjoyed their 91st consecutive period of growth (0.1 per cent) – the longest current run of success for any supermarket.

Aldi (13.7 per cent) and Lidl (18.7 per cent) both recorded an acceleration of growth, increasing their share of the market by 0.7 percentage points. Morrisons’ sales declined to 2.2 per cent, while market share dropped 0.3 percentage points to 10.8 per cent. Asda’s recent announcement of renewed price cuts is yet to affect its latest 12-week figures, as they filed losses of 3.8 per cent, taking their market share down to 16.2 per cent.

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