Queen’s jubilee boosts supermarket alcohol sales by over a third

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee helped push sales of alcohol up by a third, according to Kantar, although UK grocery inflation has hit its highest level in 13 years.

The boost from alcohol sales contributed to a wiser jubilee sales bonanza, which saw shoppers splash out an extra £87 million in the supermarkets.

Many of the retailer slashed the price of booze in the run up to the four day bank holiday in early June, with Majestic predicting bumper sales of fizz during the week, similar to those seen during the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, which saw a 10% boost in supermarket sales in the the week leading up to the festivities.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar noted that while sales were still measuring up against the record sales seen during the pandemic, the figures suggested a return to pre-pandemic norms.

Store footfall jumped by 3.4% over the latest four weeks, while online sales fell to the lowest proportion of the market since May 2020 at 12.0%.

Supermarket sales fell 1.9% over the last 12 weeks, versus the previous year, which Kantar pointed out that this was the best market performance since October last year.

However, rising inflation is still causing a headache for the sector, with like-for-like grocery prices up by 8.3% over the past month, or 1.3 percentage points since May. McKevitt added that the average annual grocery bill was on course to rise by £380 – more than £100 above the number predicted by Kantar in April this year.

“[This shows] just how sharp price increases have been recently and the impact inflation is having on the sector,” he said.