Grocery market share figures published by Kantar Worldpanel yesterday (8 April) for the 12 weeks ending 30 March, show what appears to be a dramatic market slowdown.

The statistics reveal growth of only 0.6%, however this is distorted by the late Easter this year, which was included in the 2013 period but not in the current data. Kantar Worldpanel estimates that Easter accounts for market growth of 0.9%. This means that a ‘corrected’ market growth would stand at 1.5%, but this is still low by historical standards.

Kantar Worldpanel director Edward Garner said: “Amid a challenging market backdrop, individual retailer growth might be expected to be restricted. This is certainly not the case for Aldi which achieved its highest ever growth of 35.3%, boosting the retailer to a record market share of 4.6%. Lidl also experienced strong growth in a record breaking month, and now accounts for 3.4% of the market.”

All of the ‘big four’ supermarkets saw sales fall during the 12 week period and market shares have declined, with the most resilient performance coming from Asda.

Waitrose continues to hold on to its record 5.0% share reached last period, while The Co-operative appears to have stemmed its share losses, managing to hold its current 6.1% share over our past four reports. Frozen food outlet Farmfoods is also performing well, reaching a record share of 0.8%.