UK Supermarket Sales Growth Slows After Summer Holidays

LONDON (Reuters) – British supermarket sales growth slowed over the last month as consumers trimmed spending after their summer holidays, industry data showed on Wednesday.

Market researcher NIQ said UK supermarket sales rose 4% in the four weeks to Sept. 7, after rising by 5.5% in last month’s report.

“This slowdown in growth is likely due to cooler weather and a return to regular routines for shoppers after the summer break,” NIQ said.

The researcher’s data, the most up-to-date snapshot of UK consumer behaviour, showed the online channel’s share of supermarket spend increased to 13% from 12.5% a year ago.

Echoing data from rival market researcher Kantar last week, NIQ said online grocer Ocado was the fastest growing with sales growth of 15.4% over the 12 weeks to Sept. 7. Marks & Spencer was in second place with growth of 12.4% and discounter Lidl third with growth of 11.3%.

Market leader Tesco saw sales growth of 5.3%, while No. 2 Sainsbury’s saw growth of 5.9%.

No. 3 player Asda was again the laggard with a sales fall of 5.5% and it lost 1.3 percentage points of market share over the year.

Separately on Wednesday, official UK data showed UK inflation stood at an annual rate of 2.2% in August, unchanged from July. Food inflation was 1.3%.

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Jason Neely)