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Retail

Finnish Grocery Sector Enjoys A Strong 2017: Analysis

By Steve Wynne-Jones
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Finnish Grocery Sector Enjoys A Strong 2017: Analysis

A loosening of opening hour restrictions coupled with an improvement in prices towards the end of the year has helped boost grocery sales in Finland, data from PTY, the Finnish Grocery Trade Association, has found.

According to the data, full year sales for the sector stood at €16.91 billion, an increase of 1.7% on the previous year, when sales weighed in at €16.62 billion.

In addition, almost every month last year saw an increase in sales (with an acceleration towards the end of the year), with only February (-1.0%) and March (-0.1%) seeing declines.

January was up 1.4%, April saw a 3.8% rise, May was up 0.9%, June was up 2.1%, July saw a 1.4% rise, August was up 3.2%, September up 2.6%, October up 0.9%, November up 2.1% and December saw a 2.8% increase.

"Full year sales growth was the strongest in four years," a PTY spokesperson said, adding that supermarkets in particular were able to take the most advantage of a loosening of opening hours, which enables stores to open for longer hours on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

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Over the course of 2017, the price of food fell by around one percent, the spokesperson added, however a prolonged period of price deflation in the country may be coming to an end, with prices starting to increase again in the second half off the year.

"The last time prices rose was in the last quarter of 2014," the spokesperson added.

December Performance

In December, the total sales generated by the grocery sector amounted to €1.622 billion, which is 2.8% higher than the previous year, with some formats performing better than others.

Driven somewhat by the inclement weather, larger stores were the big winners for the month, with stores over 2,500 square metres seeing a 4.5% increase in sales year-on-year, with stores larger than 1,000 square metres up 4.9%, and stores between 400 and 1,000 square metres up 5.5%.

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Smaller outlets felt the pinch, the data showed, with stores smaller than 100 square metres seeing a 0.4% decline, and mid-sized convenience stores (between 100 and 400 square metres) seeing a decline of 8.5%.

The PTY data measures sales across banners including K-Citymarket, K-Supermarket, K-Market, Neste K -liikenneasemat, Alepa, Sale, Prisma, S-market, ABC, Lidl, Stockmann, Tokmanni, M-ketju, Minimani and R-kioski.

Responsible Sector

Elsewhere, Finland's grocery sector is rated by consumers as the most responsible in the private sector, according to research by YouGov.

The study, which asked a panel of more than 20,000 Finns to consider which business sector they felt was the biggest advocate of corporate social responsibility, identified the grocery sector as the most committed, followed by energy firms and the financial sector.

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The results show that the "industry is investing heavily in the development of environmentally-friendly operations and in combating food waste," a PTY spokesperson said.

© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.

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