Britain's supermarkets see weak start to year - Kantar

LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Britain's grocery industry endured a subdued start to the year with all of the traditional big four supermarket groups seeing year-on-year sales declines in the latest 12-week trading period, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Market researcher Kantar said total UK grocery sales rose just 0.3% in the 12 weeks to Jan. 26, as consumers cut down on alcohol and meat, buying-in to "Dry January" and "Veganuary" campaigns.

It said No. 2 player Sainsbury's was the least worst performer of the big four with a sales decline of 0.6%. Industry leader Tesco, Asda and Morrisons saw sales falls of 0.9%, 2.2% and 3.0% respectively.

All of the big four continued to lose market share to German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl, whose sales rose 5.7% and 11.1% respectively. (Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Paul Sandle)