Britons are going all out this Christmas as many people want to make up for subdued festivities last year, though grocery prices are rising with inflation.
Many people have already started their shopping, according to the latest Kantar figures, with 4.7mln households buying mince pies and 1.6mln snapping Christmas puddings in October.
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Frozen poultry sales are 27% higher year on year, with people spending an additional £6.1mln in the latest four weeks.
“After a tough 18 months, consumers are gearing up for bigger and better celebrations,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.
“With Christmas ads out earlier than ever and Christmas stock on the shelves, we’re keen to prepare early this year so we can dive headfirst into festivities.”
However, grocery prices are rising and October inflation hit its highest rate since August 2020, rising 2.1% in the quarter to 31 October.
“As prices increase in certain categories, we can expect shoppers to continue to visit several supermarkets and shop around to find the best deals. Already, households visit an average of 3.3 supermarkets per month in order to find the best value for money,” McKevitt continues.
Perhaps surprisingly, discounters didn’t perform particularly well in the period and Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO) was the only retailer to see sales rise, up 0.3%.
Lidl was the only one to report a flat performance, while Iceland and Aldi dropped 3.9% and 0.4% respectively.
The ‘Big Four’ didn’t do much better, with Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LSE:MRW), J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY) and Asda consumer spending down 4.3%, 2.8% and 2.3% respectively.
Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO) saw a 2.1% dip as people do more trips to the shops, although online sales are still higher than pre-pandemic times.
Digital sales accounted for 12.4% of the total grocery market for the second month in a row, with a fifth of households consistently ordering groceries online each month, becoming "long-term converts", Kantar said.