Lidl moves up the supermarket rankings

The supermarket landscape continues to change, with discounters Lidl and Aldi both making big strides forward. 

Lidl has overtaken Waitrose to become the UK's seventh largest supermarket chain, according to latest grocery market share figures for the 12 weeks ending 13 August from Kantar Worldpanel.

The German discounter food retailer has increased its market share by 0.7% to 5.2%, as 10 million households visited the retailer’s expanding network of stores during the past 12 weeks and overall sales grew by 18.9% overall. Lidl is particularly popular with families, growing sales 40% faster with families than with households without children.  

Aldi, which is established in fifth place, also saw rapid growth, with sales up by 17.2%. It attracted1.1 million more shoppers through its doors than this time last year, increasing its market share by 0.8% to 7%.”

Overall supermarket sales grew by 4.0% year on year, although the poor weather hit summer favourites hard during the past month. Grocery market share figures from March 2017 onwards show that UK supermarkets are now experiencing their best sales growth in five years.

"All four of Britain's biggest grocers managed to grow sales for the fifth consecutive period, a run of collective success not seen since 2013," said Fraser McKevitt, head of retailer and consumer insight at Kantar. 

But after more than two years in growth, the Co-op’s sales declined by 0.4% as its market share fell by 0.3% to 6.3%.  This dip is at least partly attributable to the retailer’s sale of nearly 300 of its stores to convenience chain McColl’s, according to Kantar. 

The latest retail top 10 is:

• Tesco (27.8%)
• Sainsbury's (15.8%)
• Asda (15.3%)
• Morrisons (10.4%)
• Aldi (7%)
• Co-op (6.3%)
• Lidl (5.2%)
• Waitrose (5.1%)
• Iceland (2.1%)
• Ocado (1.4%)