SuperValu new number one supermarket
SuperValu has now overtaken Tesco to become Ireland's largest grocery retailer
Print13 April 2015
The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published today for the 12 weeks ending 29 March, show a change at the top with SuperValu becoming Ireland’s largest grocery retailer.
David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “One of the key rules in driving sales growth is that you need to broaden your appeal to attract new consumers to your brand. SuperValu has consistently achieved this with eighteen consecutive periods of footfall growth increasing its shopper numbers by 63,000. Undoubtedly one of the key milestones in helping SuperValu move to the top of the pile was the acquisition of the Superquinn business in July 2011. Rebranding the 24 Superquinn stores under the SuperValu banner in February 2014 led to an immediate jump in market share from 20% to 25.1%. More importantly, SuperValu’s performance within Dublin improved dramatically as its market share more than doubled from 9.5% to 22.2% today.”
Tesco’s story is one of mixed performance. Sales are down year on year and as a result market share has dipped from 25.9% to 24.7%. While Tesco will be disappointed to have lost its number one position, there are some positive signs for the retailer. It has not lost shoppers since this time last year and its customers are making the same number of shopping trips with increased average basket sizes – the most positive results for these metrics in more than two years. This points to an interesting battle over the coming months as SuperValu looks to remain in the top spot while Tesco aims to regain its advantage.
Dunnes has continued to enjoy healthy growth, with a 4.9% sales increase improving its market share to 22.7%. This has been fuelled by larger baskets, with two additional items included in each average trip, and can be linked to the retailer’s ‘Shop and Save’ voucher campaign which incentivised shoppers to spend more on each visit. The performance of both Aldi and Lidl has remained impressive with sales growth of 11.1% and 9.7% respectively. Aldi has successfully recruited new shoppers to its stores, while Lidl shoppers are returning to the retailer more often.
SuperValu response
SuperValu has thanked its customers for their support, following today’s announcement from Kantar Worldpanel. Earlier this year, the brand announced it had reached its highest ever sales total in 2014 after recording sales of €2.58 billion. This follows the growth of SuperValu by 30% over a ten year period.
Martin Kelleher, SuperValu managing director, said the feat is “even more important when you bear in mind that SuperValu is a brand that is essentially made up of independent retailers from across the country”.
Kelleher said the group had achieved the top spot by focusing on three key areas; providing best quality Irish food; delivering “unrivalled expertise” through its people; supporting communities, charitable causes and initiatives like TidyTowns and putting money back into the local economy through its independent retail model.
“Local ownership is one of our unique selling points: the fact that our stores are operated by people from the local community, the store owner knows his or her customers and what they want,” said Kelleher.
SuperValu is planning to open four new stores in the year ahead and continue to invest in refurbishing its store network, adding 280 employees to the SuperValu group in the process
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