What you need to know

COVID-19 has seen spending by Irish consumers on grocery increase strongly, as initial stockpiling of grocery items helped to drive the market forward, while the lockdown and more time spent at home drove the need for more food shopping. Moving forward, as more consumers struggle to make ends meet due to the economic impact of COVID-19, this will drive purchasing of own-label items and increase the usage of discounters such as Lidl and Aldi. Four in ten Irish shoppers expect that COVID-19 will create future food shortages, compounding the impact that Brexit has had on moving food between GB and NI/ RoI.

Christmas 2020 is likely to see spending on groceries remain high, with 73% of Irish consumers stating the COVID-19 outbreak means that it is more important than ever to have a good Christmas – with this sentiment potentially translating to increased spending on festive food and drink via supermarkets.

Key issues covered in this Report

  • The impact of COVID-19 on consumer grocery habits and spending.

  • Impact of economic impact of COVID-19 on consumer spending priorities.

  • Preferences in own-label vs branded goods.

  • The threat posed to supermarkets by hard discounters.

Issues covered in this Report

This Report will examine the grocery retailing sector in Ireland through exploring the issues that are driving growth on the island of Ireland. Covered in this Report is the sale of all grocery items including market segmentation of supermarket retail sales via mainstream supermarkets, such as Tesco, Asda, SuperValu and Dunnes Stores. The sale of groceries through convenience format stores, such as Spar, and the hard discounters, Aldi and Lidl, is also discussed, however, it is not included in the Market Size and Forecast section.

Each store type is defined as follows:

  • Supermarket – A supermarket sells a wide variety of goods, both food and non-food items. A supermarket can range in size anywhere between 400 sq m and 2,500 sq m. Examples include Tesco, Dunnes, Asda, Sainsbury’s and SuperValu.

  • Discounter – Discounters (sometimes referred to as hard discounters) are retailers that subscribe to the ‘stack it high, sell it cheap’ mentality. Lidl and Aldi are the two leading examples of these discount retailers, which target price-conscious consumers.

  • Convenience store – A convenience store (also called a c-store or symbol group retailer) tends to be smaller in size, is traditionally open for longer hours and typically sells staple groceries and snacks, although it also stocks a range of non-food items. Many petrol stations also supplement their operations with the offer of convenience stores. Prices are typically higher than those in a larger supermarket.

This Report also looks at grocery preferences in terms of own-label and branded items. They are defined as the following:

  • Own-label – A retailer own-brand is a product or service that carries either the brand of the retailer or a sub-brand name that is controlled by the retailer. Own-brand products can be supplied by firms that specialise in own-brand products but also by those that are supplying branded products. In some cases, own-labels or own-brands are sometimes referred to as ‘private labels’, with typical examples being generic grocery items simply labelled with the grocery retailer’s branding.

  • Branded – Branded is a type of product manufactured with a trademark or distinctive name identifying a particular company.

Back to top