According to Kantar’s latest statistics, grocery price inflation decreased 1.5 percentage points from January, while take-home grocery sales grew in value by 5.1% for the four weeks to 18 February 2024.

Tom Steel, strategic insight director at Kantar, said the results shows “things are looking up” this month, given that consumers have seen a grocery inflation rate of more than 4% for two years now.

He said: “We saw promotions accelerate this month after a post-Christmas slowdown. Consumers’ spending on offers increased by 4% in February, worth £586m more than the same month in 2023. The battle between supermarkets’ own-label lines and brands also remains fierce. Own-label nipped ahead this month, growing sales by 5.5% versus branded products at 5.3%.”

The results also revealed that, during Valentine’s Day this year, steak and boxed chocolate sales shot up by 12% and 16% compared with last year, while sales of chilled ready meals and desserts on promotion did “particularly well” this year.
 
Sales of alcohol were also on the rise in February, up by 18% in volume terms versus the previous month, with consumers buying 28% more wine and 16% more beer and lager. 

Red wine was particularly popular, with eight million more bottles bought this month than in January. 

Symbols and independents saw a 0.7% rise year on year, from £499m in sales in the 12 weeks to 19 February 2023 to £502m in the 12 weeks to 18 February 2024.

Major discount retailer Lidl saw the biggest jump year on year at 10.9%. Symbols and independents saw a slight decline in their grocer market share of 1.4%, down by 0.1%, Tesco held first place across all grocers with a 27.6% market share.