Revealed: The 10 biggest selling brands in the Irish grocery market

The best-selling brand has topped the list for 9 years in a row…

THE LIST OF the best selling brands in the Irish grocery market has been released – and it is dominated by sweets, chocolate and crisps.

Coca-Cola tops the list of the Checkout magazine Top 100 Brands for the ninth year in a row, following in second place by Avonmore. Other brands which made the top 10 included Brennan’s bread (3rd place), Tayto crisps (6th) and 7Up (7th place).

Ireland’s sweet tooth is very much in evidence in the list: more than 10 per cent of the top 100 brands are sweets or chocolate, including Cadbury Dairy Milk (5th place), Galaxy (35th), Nestlé KitKat (49th), Haribo (53rd) and Maltesers (55th).

The report also found that Budweiser is the best selling alcohol brand in off-licences, Blossom Hill is the best selling wine brand and Smirnoff is the top selling spirit.

One of the biggest jumps on the list was Galtee sliced meat which leapt 42 places to 81st. Another big winner was juice company Innocent which jumped 23 places to number 30 this year, one spot behind rival Tropicana. Yoghurt brands Muller and Glenisk both jumped (to 20th and 39th spot respectively) while Danone dropped two places but remains in the top 10.

Some of the brands which dropped down on the list this year include Volvic water, KitKat and Denny sausages which all dropped nine places to 47th, 49th and 63rd on the list respectively.

Unsurprisingly, frozen ready meals dropped 11 places to become the 89th biggest selling grocery category following the horsemeat relevations earlier this year.

The biggest selling grocery categories overall were confectionery, milk, bakery, carbonated soft drinks and biscuits.

The list was put together by Checkout magazine in association with Nielsen and counts the biggest selling brands sold in mainstream grocery outlets.

Checkout editor Stephen Wynne-Jones said the list shows that biggest brands which have been able to navigate the recession and still offer value for money have fared the best.

Maureen Mooney of Nielsen that many customers are now buying multipacks in a bid to save money.

“One trend we’ve noticed recently is a rise in what we call ‘pre-planned impulse’, where instead of a consumer buying an impulse product, they’re buying the multipack because they perceive it to be a lot better value,” she said.

“Impulse chocolate sales are actually in decline, but take home multipacks of chocolate are up 27 per cent year-on-year. Consumers can see the added value benefits.”

The top 10

1. Coca-Cola