While attention has inevitably been on the first rise in grocery price inflation since March last year, the latest till roll data from Kantar Worldpanel also contains valuable insights into the grocery market itself.
The figures highlight in particular the continued success of the biggest two players in the market, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, in terms of pulling away from the rest of the pack.
Asda, on the other hand, looks to be in a very bad way.
Its market share during the period fell to 12.6%, down from 13.7% a year ago, which is an astonishing fall from grace.
It does not seem that long ago that Asda first overtook Sainsbury’s to become the market’s second-biggest player - an event celebrated by Tony DeNunzio, Asda’s then chief executive, by giving all 125,000 UK employees an extra day off.
In fact, though, it was as long ago as August 2003 - when Asda, then owned by the US giant Walmart, had a 17% market share and Sainsbury’s was at 16.1%.
However, following a turnaround under then chief executive Justin King, Sainsbury’s recaptured the number two spot in 2013.
The pair went on to be neck and neck for most of the next few years but Asda has not had the number two spot since late 2019 and, since then, Sainsbury’s has been on top.
So what has gone wrong at Asda?
In short, a great deal of upheaval.
Asda, in my personal opinion, is a little crap.
It’s not as cheap as aldi/lidl, yet somehow has a worse shopping experience.
It just feels like a knock-off Morrisons nowadays. Or a UK walmart.
That’s it really - it falls between two stools. It used to be the cheapest and you’d put up with it being rubbish but it has been undercut on price and is now stuck not doing anything well.
They might still have a stake in it.