Irish shoppers spent a record €90 million on their grocery shop at Christmas with the average household spending a record €1,532, an increase of €38 on the previous year.

David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “Much of this increase has been driven by staple items, with fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry posting a combined sales increase of €28m. “Shoppers were also partial to a Christmas tipple with sales of alcohol up almost 6% – a boost of €13 million. Wine was the drink of choice this year with white wine and red wine sales up an impressive 10% and 12% respectively.”

Dunnes Stores retained the top spot during this busy period with a 23% share of the market according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel as customers remain loyal to the store, with perks such as the ‘Shop and Save’ campaign encouraging customers to add extra items to their shopping baskets. SuperValu saw sales growth of 2%, encouraging customers to spend an extra 70 cents every time they shop. which brought its market share to 22.4%.

Tesco also performed strongly and saw its highest sales growth since February 2011 – an increase of 5.8%- bringing its market share to 22.8% according to the figures, which cover the 12 weeks ending 31 December. Historically shoppers have chosen to trade up over the Christmas period however Lidl seems to have broken the trend this year in their favour.The retailer enjoyed a positive performance over the Christmas period, with market share rising to 10.4% thanks to sales growth of 4.8%. Aldi’s sales rose by 0.9% but this was below the overall market level and led to a slight dip in market share to 10.3%.

The trend towards online shopping is showing no signs of slowing down. David Berry explains: “Online grocers experienced impressive sales growth of 24%, which boosted their share of the market to a record 2.3% over the Christmas period. Although grocery e-commerce shoppers haven’t increased in number, customers who already shop online have upped the frequency of their purchases with, on average, one extra order placed over this period.”