UK supermarket sales growth tailed off at the end of last year, but worries about inflation were sparked as grocery prices rose at their fastest rate in nine months.
Take-home sales at the grocers rose by 2.1% over the four weeks to 29 December compared with last year, which was down from the 2.5% growth reported a month earlier.
Grocery price inflation ticked up to 3.7% in the period, its highest level since March 2024.
Market leader Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO) generated a 5.0% increase in sales over the 12 weeks to 29 December, down from 5.2% in the previous report.
But its 0.8 percentage point market share gain was the biggest of any supermarket, taking its hold of the market to 28.5%.
Closest rival J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY) also achieved its highest share since December 2019 at 16.0% as sales grew 3.5%, which was faster than the wider market but down from 4.7% a month earlier.
Fraser McKevitt, Kantar's head of retail and consumer insight, called it a "solid Christmas" for the supermarkets, with total sales surpassing £13 billion during the four weeks of December for the first time ever, which was helped by price inflation.
"In contrast to reports of disappointing footfall across the rest of the high street, it was a very different story in the world of grocery," he says.
"The average household made nearly 17 separate shopping trips this December, delivering the busiest month for the retailers since the pre-lockdown rush in March 2020."
Kantar found that more people chose to do some of their Christmas grocery shopping online this year, with 5.6 million households opting to do this on at least one occasion as online spending for the month reached a record £1.6 billion.
This saw Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO) boost its sales by 9.6% over the 12 weeks, taking its overall share to 1.8%.