FDBusiness.com

Spending on Christmas food and drink is set to be worth £20 billion this year, which represents growth of 1.2% compared to last year when £19.7 billion was spent.

Joanne Denney-Finch, IGD chief executive, says: “Even at Christmas, shoppers are still looking for ways to help manage their finances. As we’ve seen over the rest of this year, the big weekly shop is in decline – and this is no different at Christmas. Only three out of ten (27%) shoppers are planning to do a ‘big Christmas shop’, as most people are intending to spread their shopping across a number of grocery formats and trips, with just over half (52%) of them preferring to use a number of different stores and many of them doing so to secure the best prices. They are prepared to put the effort in to get the best products from a diverse range of stores, which is why a quarter (25%) of shoppers tell us they are going to ‘cherry pick’.”

These savvy shopping techniques are set to provide a festive boost to food discounters.

Joanne Denney-Finch continues:: “We’re expecting food discounters to be the fastest growing part of the UK grocery market this Christmas and their share of the market to be worth around £1.5 billion. Seven out of ten (67%) shoppers tell us they’re going to use them, and 6% of these people say they don’t normally shop there but will try them this festive period. Some of the interesting reasons beyond cost that shoppers tell us they’re going to use discounters at Christmas include a quarter (26%) saying they’d like to try new and different products, while nearly one in ten (8%) say they would like to buy something that was recommended to them.

“However, the majority of shoppers (88%) tell us they will be using supermarkets to buy their Christmas food and groceries.”

The online grocery channel is also set to benefit. IGD is forecasting it will be worth just over £1 billion in sales, making it the second fastest growing grocery format this Christmas. Half of shoppers (46%) are planning to buy some of their festive food and groceries online. This is being helped with more click and collect options available this year, including transport hubs, and more people paying for online subscription delivery passes.

Joanne Denney-Finch concludes: “With three out of ten (28%) shoppers saying they’ve only recently started buying their Christmas food and groceries, and a fifth saying they’re going to leave it to the week before Christmas – and even 7% telling us they’re leaving it to the last minute (22nd to 24th) – there’s still plenty of opportunity for all different types of food retailing to influence shoppers in the lead-up to the big day.”