Dunnes Stores has reclaimed top spot in the battle for Ireland's most popular grocer, pushing SuperValu back down into second place.

It is only the second time the chain has reached first place, having first held the position last November. Its sales growth, however, dipped to 3.6% – its lowest level in more than a year.

Overall, supermarket spending has slowed down. 

Looking at the 12 weeks ending January 29th, Kantar found that retailers failed to sustain the same level of strong growth achieved over the Christmas period. Grocery sales growth fell to 3.0%, down from 4.6% last month.

David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: 

“The slowdown in overall market growth has led to even stronger competition between the major supermarkets and it’s tight at the top of the market share table – only 0.3 percentage points separate Dunnes Stores, SuperValu and Tesco.

"This points to a good year for consumers as the retailers battle each other fiercely for their all-important grocery spend, keeping price inflation low. Grocery prices are only 0.7% higher than they were this time last year – which for the average shopper only amounts to an extra 17 cents per trip."

Aldi enjoys fastest growth

While those sluggish performances will concern the big players, discount retailer Aldi continues to go from strength-to-strength. 

Aldi was the fastest-growing retailer over the period, with sales up by 6.3% year-on-year.

Shoppers are now visiting the retailer 8.7 times every 12 weeks, compared to 8.1 times for the same period last year. Aldi has a 10.6% of the grocery market, ahead of the 10.3% from last year.

Its fierce German rival Lidl remains hot on its heels. Almost three-quarters of Irish shoppers visited a Lidl store in the past 12 weeks; having encouraged another 26,000 new consumers through its doors, the retailer has posted positive sales growth of 2.8%.