UK shoppers upped their spend on healthy products in January while seeking to save money where possible, according to industry data from Nielsen for the four-week period to 26 January.
Grocery sales increased by 3.3% in the period, with volume growth in fresh produce rising by 1.5% therein.
Shoppers spent over £900 million (€1,024.08 million) on fresh fruit and vegetables – over £27 million (€30.72 million) more than at this time last year – Nielsen reported.
With healthy eating on the minds of many shoppers, sales of broccoli increased (+15%), as did those of beetroot (+14%), Brazil nuts (+13%) and blueberries (+10%).
Free-from sales were also up, posting a 17% increase in January.
Evolving Trends
“The increase in grocery spend in the fresh- and frozen-food categories [is] a testament to evolving shopping trends. In the new year, consumers are focusing on positive diet changes, which are not just healthy, but convenient, cheap, and are less wasteful overall,” said Mike Watkins, Nielsen’s UK head of retailer insight.
“However, we can see caution creeping in, as consumer confidence dipped at the end of 2018, by four points, to 98 – back to the level last seen in 2017,” Watkins added.
“This will take some time to impact on grocery spend, and we still anticipate industry growth of around 2.5% over the first four months of the year,” he furthered.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
