DUNNES STORES HAS retained its position as Ireland’s most popular supermarket.

The latest Kantar Worldpanel supermarket shares show that Dunnes Stores accounted for 22.2% of the consumer spend of the course of 12 weeks to 8 September 2019, making it the country’s most popular supermarket.

Tesco and SuperValu, meanwhile, are in joint second place, both accounting for 21.4% of total grocery sales. 

Budget retailers Lidl and Aldi shares reached 11.9% and 12.5% respectively. 

Kantar Worldpanel noted Aldi has been successfully encouraging bigger shops. 

With each customer now picking up 19.7 items each visit, Aldi is clipping at the heels of Dunnes where the average is 20 – the highest in the market. 

Dunnes achieved the second fastest growth during the past 12 weeks at 5.8%. 

Kantar’s consumer insight director Charlotte Scott said: “Dunnes attracted an additional 38,000 shoppers compared with this time last year. 

“If there was one negative in Dunnes’ report card it would be that customers are visiting its stores less often – but that decline remains marginal at 0.3%.” 

Kantar Worldpanel Kantar Worldpanel

Scott noted that as summer is drawing to a close, people are beginning to return to their normal routines and their shopping habits are shifting accordingly. 

“Children are back at school and parents needing easy breakfast and packed-lunch options have boosted sales of cereals and bread by 14%, 10% and 6% respectively during the past four weeks, compared with the month before,” Scott said. 

She added that the lead up to Christmas has also had an impact on sales. 

“If you’re one of the people that feels like Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year – you might be right,” Scott said. 

“With less than 100 days to go until the big day, retailers have been ramping up their festive activity with deals on seasonal chocolates including advent calendars,” she said. 

“Sales of chocolate boxes and gifts were 65% higher than the previous four weeks as people took the opportunity to get a head start on their shopping.”