Discounters Bag Shopper Records After EU Vote

There are signs the UK's vote to leave the EU has prompted grocery shoppers to become more price conscious - with discounters seeing the greatest benefit.

The latest industry figures, released by Kantar Worldpanel, showed Lidl sales growing 12.5% in the 12 weeks to 17 July compared to the same period last year - with Aldi close behind on 11%.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) placed their market shares at new record highs of 4.5% and 6.2% respectively - level with Morrisons' 10.7% when combined.

There was progress too for Iceland, Co-op and - at the top end of the market - Waitrose.

The 'big four' chains continued to see sales decline, Kantar said.

It reported a fall of 0.7% at market leader, Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) , and decline of 1.1% for Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's.

Asda's new boss, Sean Clarke, saw sales drop by 5.6% while Morrisons achieved its best result since January with sales down by 1.8%.

Kantar added there was no sign that the EU vote had had an impact on store prices, but it is feared that the fall in the value of the pound will eventually push up checkout costs as imported goods will cost chains more to buy.

Kantar's head of retail, Fraser McKevitt, said: "The EU referendum result has had no immediate impact on the prices retailers are charging or the sales volumes consumers are buying over the past 12 weeks.

"The nation's average shopping basket is 1.4% cheaper than a year ago, exactly the same level of deflation as reported last month, and it remains to be seen if the Brexit vote will bring about any price rises this year.

"Over the latest 12 weeks beer sales did bring about some cheer for the grocers, growing 2.8%, ahead of the overall market.

"The impact was mostly felt prior to England's early exit from the Euro 2016 football tournament, which brought with it a rapid reversal in fortune for beer sales.

"Beer and lager were also hindered by poor early summer weather, as were BBQ favourites like sausages, which fell by 6.3%."