Supermarkets in Ireland have had their best year in five years.

The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland shows year on year growth of 2.1% in the three months up to October.

The growth in sales is ahead of the rate of inflation, which indicates consumers are “becoming less restrictive in what they buy and adding extra items to their baskets,” David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel said.

Dunnes has continued the recent trend of strong growth, with an eleventh successive period of sales growth. This period saw sales growth up 4.7% to bring their market share to 23.2%. Kantar Worldpanel say they believe this growth is down to a focus on price promotions, with 39% of all money spent in Dunnes stores in the past 12 weeks going on promotional items.

Despite being the only of the major chains to see a drop in value sales - 0.1% down on last year - Tesco is still the largest supermarket in the country, at 24.5% market share – a narrow lead over Supervalu whose market share is now up to 24.4%.

More people are now choosing discount shops, and Lidl and Aldi have both performed well, with year on year increases in sales of 9.8% and 4.5% respectively. Lidl had the highest sales growth of any retailer. 

Both budget retailers are benefiting from customers filling their baskets and trolleys higher, with each basket in Lidl containing an average two additional items when compared with this time last year. Aldi had a one item increase. Lidl is not only selling more to each customer, they’re attracting new customers – 40,000 of them this year.

Retailers outside the big five – Spar, Centra, Marks and Spencers etc - have suffered this year however, with the market share of ‘Other’ retailers down from 11.1% to 10.4%.

For this study Kantar Worldpanel Ireland monitors the household grocery purchasing habits of 3,000 demographically representative households in the Republic of Ireland.