Growing pressure on prices among Britain’s big four supermarkets has led to the lowest growth in the sector for 11 years, new figures have shown.
The big four Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons continue to be squeezed to varying degrees between discount retailers such as Aldi and Lidl and upmarket rivals such as Waitrose, according to the latest till-roll figures from Kantar Worldpanel.
The survey said 45% of products on sale by the big four were on promotion.
Overall, the grocery market grew by 1.9%.
Tesco saw its market share fall to 28.7% in the 12 weeks to April 27 from 30% a year earlier.
Morrisons slipped from a share of 11.6% 12 months ago to 11% over the period.
In response to price pressure, Morrisons last week began reductions averaging 17% on 1,200 products.
Sainsbury’s annual results (see below) showed last year’s like-for-like sales growth at its lowest for nine years.
Asda maintained its share of the market at 17.3%, after a 2% improvement in sales compared with a year ago.
Kantar director Edward Garner said: “There are clear signs that the major supermarkets are reviewing their strategies in the face of increasing competition.
“We’re now seeing the big four moving away from ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ promotions and toward everyday low prices, with Tesco, Morrisons and Asda all announcing price cuts this month.”
Rivals at the upper and discount ends of the sector grabbed record market shares.
Waitrose’s 5.1%, Aldi’s 4.7% and Lidl’s 3.5% were each all-time market share highs for these grocers.
Kantar also pointed out that Aldi’s year-on-year growth rate of 36.1% was another record, while Lidl’s 20.9% annual growth was its highest since 2004.