British grocery store sales hit a record $13 billion in March after panic-buying frenzy made consumers shop more than usual

Latest figures from market data provider Kantar show UK supermarket sales grew by the fastest rate year-on-year in over a decade during the past 12 weeks.
Overall sales were up 20.6% in the four weeks to March 22, Kantar found .
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British supermarket sales reached 10.8 billion ($13.25 billion) in March as households prepared for an extended stay at home.

The grocery market figures show sales grew by the fastest rate year-on-year in over a decade during the past 12 weeks.

Supermarkets saw unusually high activity on March 16 when the public headed to shops in high numbers. Rather than a widespread increase in using large trolleys, Kantar said the record sales figure was due to an increase in shopping trips and buying slightly more each time.

"Given the media focus around the outbreak of COVID-19 in February, it's unsurprising to see shoppers prudently protecting themselves from illness. Sales of hand sanitizer increased by 255% in February. Meanwhile, other kinds of liquid soaps saw sales increase by 7%, and 10% more was spent on household cleaners," said Fraser McKevitt, Kantar's Head of Retail and Consumer Insight, in a statement .

Kantar data shows that the average household spent an additional 62.92 USD AMOUNT in the past four weeks, about five days worth of groceries. Shoppers in London increased their spending by 26% in March, the highest in comparison to other parts of the UK.

Consumers that foresaw a lockdown and wished to recreate leisure time spent at the pub had been stocking up, thereby boosting alcohol sales volumes by 22%, an increase of 199 USD AMOUNT million in the past month.

Online grocery sales were 13% higher than the same period in 2019, Kantar said.

Leading among the "big four" traditional grocers, Sainsbury's was the fastest-growing retailer with growth of 7.4% followed by Tesco at 5.5%, Asda at 4.9% and Morrisons at 4.6%.

During a time of unprecedented consumer demand, all ten of the largest UK retailers had simultaneous growth during the past 12 weeks unseen since October 2018. Kantar also said independent retailers such as Spar, Nisa, Premier, Londis and Costcutter's sales rose collectively by 16.1% in this period.

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