Instead of reaching for tanning lotions and after-summer creams, Northern Ireland consumers have had different items on their shopping lists in July.
For according to retail analysts Kantar, the unseasonable weather has led to an 8.8% increase in sales of cold treatments in local supermarkets, with shoppers spending £350,000 more on soup compared to last year.
On the flip side, sales of sun preparations plummeted by 13.8%.
And with the Euros dominating the sporting scene over recent weeks, shoppers in Northern Ireland spent an extra £3.3 million on take-home savouries and £4 million on beer and lager compared to last year.
In the year to July 7, Kantar said £4.25 billion ran through supermarket tills in the north.
That’s up 6.4% on the previous year, which equates to an additional spend of £256.7 million.
Take-home grocery sales grew, with shoppers visiting stores more often, on average over one more trip than last year, though the number of packs they picked up grew only marginally by 0.4%.
Although grocery inflation has fallen for the 10th consecutive month, the average annual grocery bill is set to rise by £420 from £5,600 to £6,020 if consumers don’t change their shopping habits, Kantar says.
Tesco has again held on to its years-long position at the top of the grocery market-share table and is Northern Ireland’s largest grocer with a 35.4% slice of the market.
It is followed by Sainsbury’s (16.9%), Asda (16.2%) and Lidl (9.2%), with the remainder being made up of other multiples (7.8%), symbol stores (6.8%) and other outlets selling food (7.7%).
