The latest figures from Kantar show that take-home grocery sales in Ireland grew by 16.4% in the 12 weeks to 24 January 2021. 

Growth edged up over the past month to 16.8% as the new year brought a full month of restrictions on eating and drinking outside of the home.

Emer Healy, retail analyst at Kantar, comments: “January wasn’t quite the fresh start we hoped for, and ongoing lockdowns meant we continued to rely on supermarkets to keep us fed.

“With restaurants and bars closed for the past four weeks, Irish shoppers spent an extra €142.8 million on take-home groceries compared with last year.”

A total of 15,000 fewer Irish households purchased meat-free alternatives this month, driving a 5.2% decline in sales compared with last year. Sales of chocolate and crisps grew by 26% and 40% this month.With the return of home schooling in January, households with children spent €172 more on groceries in the latest four weeks, parting with an additional €4.5 million on cereals, €3.9 million extra on yogurt, and €7.8 million more on cheese.”

January also brought uncertainty about the impact of Brexit, with temporary disruption in the fresh-fruit aisles.

Sales of tropical fruit, strawberries and soft fruit all fell this month as shoppers struggled to get their hands on imported produce.

Retail jobs boost

But homegrown Irish staples and sales of vegetables have increased by 18.5% in the past four weeks.

Bolstered by their online presence, Tesco and SuperValu boosted sales by 16.5% and 18.5% respectively.

Both Aldi and Lidl announced thousands of new jobs in Ireland this month. Lidl continued to see the strongest growth of all the retailers and grew sales by 25.6% as shoppers spent an additional €77.9 million in store.

Aldi held a 11.3% share of the market this period. Dunnes is top of the table with the largest share of the market this period at 22.6% as visitors to its supermarkets continued to spend the most in-store.