UK supermarkets saw higher food price inflation help their sales increase by over 3% for a sixth month, according to the latest industry data, with Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) again leading the ‘Big Four’.
Kantar Worldpanel said its latest grocery market share figures showed an overall increase of 3.6% in sales for the 12 weeks to 10 September 2017, compared with the same period last year.
READ: Lidl now UK’s seventh biggest supermarket, but ‘Big Four’ led by Tesco also seeing sales growth
The market research group said food price inflation was 3.2% in the period, compared with 3.3% a year earlier.
Supermarket leader Tesco came out on top once more, with sales up 2.7%, although its market share was squeezed by 0.3 percentage points to 27.8%.
Sales at J Sainsbury PLC (LON:SBRY) were up 2.1%, while Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LON:MRW) saw its sales rise 2.3%, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) owned Asda added 1.5%.
But the German discounters again saw the fastest growth, with Lidl sales jumping 19.2%, taking its share to a record high of 5.3%, while rival Aldi saw growth of 15.6%, resulting in a market share of 6.9%.