British grocery inflation stabilises - Kantar Worldpanel

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LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - One year on from Britain's vote

to leave the European Union grocery price rises are no longer

accelerating, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said like-for-like

grocery inflation was 3.2 percent in the 12 weeks to July 16 -

the same rate of increase as last month's data.

Rising prices in categories such as butter, fish and cola

have been partially offset by falling prices in areas including

fruit squash and cooked poultry, it said.

"One year on from the EU referendum – which had a marked

impact on the price of imported groceries (due to the fall in

sterling) – hard-pressed shoppers could soon start to feel

upward pricing pressures ease," said Fraser McKevitt, head of

retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.

It said overall supermarket sales rose 3.9 percent in the

period, helped by a spell of hot weather and the inflation.

Market leader Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) was the best performer of

Britain's big four supermarkets with a sales rise of 2.3

percent.

Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's and Morrisons grew sales by 2.2

percent and 2.1 percent respectively, while Asda

remained the laggard with growth of 1.0 percent.

But all of the big four still lost market share to

discounters Aldi and Lidl .

Lidl's sales increased 19.4 percent, its strongest growth

since October 2014, taking its market share to a record high of

5.1 percent. Aldi's sales rose 17.9 percent, giving it a market

share of 7.0 percent.

Market share and sales growth (percent)

12 wks to 12 wks to pct change

July 16 2017 July 17 2016 in sales

Tesco 27.8 28.3 2.3

Sainsbury's 16.0 16.3 2.2

Asda 15.1 15.5 1.0

Morrisons 10.5 10.7 2.1

Aldi 7.0 6.2 17.9

Co-Operative 6.2 6.4 0.4

Waitrose 5.1 5.1 2.8

Lidl 5.1 4.5 19.4

Iceland 2.1 2.1 5.7

Ocado 1.3 1.3 11.7

Source: Kantar Worldpanel

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton and Mark

Potter)