New figures from Kantar show that consumers spent an additional €9.3m on Easter eggs this year to bring the total spend to €24.6m.
Consumers also increased their spend on other Easter treats, with a total of €1.1m spent on hotcross buns – an increase of 28% on Easter 2023.
Today’s figures from Kantar show that grocery price inflation slowed for the 11th month in a row in March. Grocery price inflation rose by 3.7% in the 12 weeks to March 17, down from 16% the same month last year.
Meanwhile, take-home grocery sales rose by 4.5% in the four weeks to March 17, with consumers spending €1.1 billion during the period.
Shoppers spent an additional €47.8m on take-home groceries compared to the same time last year.
Kantar’s Business Development Director Emer Healy noted that retailers had increased promotional activity during Easter with over 51% of value sales of Easter eggs sold on promotion.
Alongside promotions, retailers also placed an emphasis on own label lines to get shoppers through the doors, she said.
“Sales of own label performed strongly, growing ahead of the total market at 5.5% year-on-year and holding value share of 48%, with shoppers spending an additional €80.5m year-on-year,” Ms Healy said.
Premium own label ranges continued to perform well with shoppers spending an additional €172m on these lines, 12.3% increases compared to this time last year. Brands also saw growth over the 12 weeks of 3.8%, slightly behind the total market, today’s figures show.
Meanwhile, online sales were up 16.7% with shoppers spending an additional €26.5m online year-on-year. New shoppers, alongside larger trips, boosted online’s overall performance by €16.3m, Kantar said.
Today’s figures are based on the purchase of 30,000 products by Irish shoppers.
Today’s figures show that Dunnes continues to holds the biggest market share of the grocery market at 24%, with growth of 7.7% year-on-year.
This growth came on the back of more frequent trips to the supermarket group, which rose by 5.4% and which contributed an additional €38.2m to its overall performance.
Tesco holds 22.8% of the market, up 7.5% year-on-year. Kantar said that Tesco had the strongest frequency growth amongst all the retailers for another month in a row, which contributed an additional €50.8m to its overall performance.
SuperValu holds 20.4% of the market with growth of 3.1%. SuperValu shoppers make the most trips in-store when compared to all retailers, 21.3 trips on average and a boost in volume per trip, which contributed an additional €12.4m to its overall performance.
Meanwhile, Lidl holds a 13.5% share with growth of 5.4% year-on-year. More frequent trips contributed an additional €30.9m to its overall performance.
Finally, Aldi holds an 11.5% market share with more frequent trips contributing an additional €6.4m to the overall performance in the period under review.
