UK food inflation doubles in a month - Kantar Worldpanel

(Adds detail, background)

LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - British food inflation has

doubled since last month, with the price of staples including

butter, tea, lamb and fish all rising, industry data showed on

Tuesday, adding to evidence that the impact of last year's

Brexit vote is pushing up shoppers' bills.

Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said grocery inflation

was 1.4 percent for the 12 weeks to Feb. 26, up from 0.7 percent

in the 12 weeks to Jan. 29.

Food prices have been rising in Britain since the 12 weeks

to Jan 1, bringing to an end a more than two-year period when

prices fell.

Separately on Tuesday two other surveys showed British

consumers cutting back on non-essential spending as the impact

of the depreciation of sterling on import costs following last

year's decision to leave the European Union pushes up the cost

of their day-to-day shopping.

"Staples (NasdaqGS: SPLS - news) such as butter, tea and fish all saw prices rise by

more than 5 percent during the past 12 weeks, as fruit and

vegetables – many of which are imported – also saw an uptick in

price," said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer

insight at Kantar Worldpanel.

However, he pointed out that inflation is still far from

universal, with prices falling across a number of categories

including crisps, bacon and eggs.

"While consumers may be starting to feel a very slight

pinch, increased inflation has led to overall market growth,"

said McKevitt.

Overall grocery sales in the 12 weeks to Feb. 26 period rose

2.3 percent - the fastest rate since June 2014.

Sales at market leader Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) were up 0.6 percent, a

sixth period in a row of increased sales. They were up 0.3

percent at No. 2 supermarket Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's, its first

growth since March last year.

And sales were up 2.6 percent at No. 4, Morrisons, its

fastest growth in five years. But No. 3 supermarket Asda

saw its sales fall 0.8 percent - still a significant improvement

and its best performance since November 2014.

Discounter Lidl [LIDUK.UL} was Britain’s fastest growing

supermarket during the 12 weeks with sales up by 13.0 percent,

while rival Aldi grew sales by 12.9 percent to reach

a record market share of 6.3 percent.

Market share and sales growth (percent).

12 wks to 12 wks to pct change

Feb. 26 2017 Feb. 28 2016 in sales

Tesco 27.9 28.4 0.6

Sainsbury's 16.5 16.8 0.3

Asda 15.7 16.2 -0.8

Morrisons 10.6 10.6 2.6

Aldi 6.3 5.8 12.9

Co-Operative 5.9 6.0 1.7

Waitrose 5.3 5.2 2.9

Lidl 4.6 4.2 13.0

Iceland 2.2 2.1 8.8

Source: Kantar Worldpanel

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)