People in Northern Ireland will be paying 15% more for Christmas dinner this year, capping off a year in which they spent a total of £4.3bn on their groceries, a report has said.
Information company Kantar said that in the year to December 1, total spending on groceries here went up 2.5% to hit £4.3bn.
According to Kantar, people in Northern Ireland made more trips to stores and spent more each time, resulting in an additional £107m being spent on groceries over the year.
However, Kantar said the rate of grocery price inflation had now eased, dropping to 3.5% from 4.1%.
And the price of Christmas dinner in Northern Ireland was also going up, reflecting rising prices for groceries, Kantar said.
It said that for a family of four in NI, the cost of an average Christmas dinner had risen to £25.92 – a lower cost than in Great Britain as a whole, where it costs £32.57.
The figure of £25.92 was up 14.7% from last year, driven mainly by the price of turkey and Christmas vegetable staples. In fact, Kantar said frozen turkey had gone up 41% for NI shoppers.
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Christmas cake had gone up 12.6% to £5.03, Kantar said, while carrots had risen by 9.7% to 55p. And cranberry sauce and gravy had each gone up in price by 7.9%.
Compared to Northern Ireland, the price of Christmas dinner in the Republic was much steeper at €34.74 (£28.82), though that was up just 2% on the year before.
Emer Healy, business development director at Kantar, said the figures for the year to date showed that NI shoppers spent an additional £88m on branded goods through the year – up 3.8% year on year. That meant branded goods took a 55% share of the market, with the share taken by own-label brands falling to 43.1%.
Promotional activity remains strong, accounting for over 22% of value sales, with shoppers spending almost £1bn on promotional deals.
Ms Healy said the top four grocers had not changed, with Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Lidl, in descending order, continuing to occupy the top spots.
She said: “Tesco continues to lead in market share performance, holding 35.9% of the market, up 5.4% compared to last year.
“This growth is driven by an increase in the number of trips to stores, contributing an additional £126m to its performance.
“Sainsbury’s holds a 16.7% market share, with sales up 3.3% year-on-year. Shoppers increased their number of trips by 6.9%, averaging 52 trips per year to the grocer, which added £48m to its overall performance.
“Asda holds 16.4% of the market, up 5.1% over this period, with increases in volume per trip and new shoppers contributing a combined additional £33m to its performance.
“Lidl holds a 9.1% market share, up 2.7% year-on-year, with more frequent and larger trips boosting overall performance by £9.2m.”
Last week Lidl announced the opening of a new store in Carryduff in Co Down, its 43rd in Northern Ireland since first setting up in the province in 1999.