THE HEATWAVE MAY have been just what the recession ordered: new figures show that people spent an extra €30 million in supermarkets during the hot weather, mainly on barbecue and picnic food.

People spent an extra €2 million on sausages alone – an increase of 12 per cent on the same period last year – while there was also a big increase in the amount of bags of salad, bread rolls and cooked meats sold.

Ice cream and perennial summer drink cider both grew by more than 30 per cent between May and August, while chilled burgers also sold more compared to last summer – but frozen burgers continued to decline.

“The good weather has clearly had a positive effect on the grocery market,” said David Berry of Kantar Worldpanel, which carried out the research.

The figures also looked at the market share of the major supermarkets and found that Lidl and Aldi are continuing to expand their reach – they grew by 14.8 per cent and 26.6 per cent respectively over the summer, and now have more than 15 per cent of the market in Ireland.

Tesco remains most commonly used supermarket, but Berry said that it has seen a drop in sales compared with a strong performance last year, with fewer customers spending less in store.

“Interestingly, there has been no negative effect for Superquinn following the recent announcement that the stores will be renamed SuperValu, with sales and market share remaining in line with last year,” said Berry.

The figures were released by Kantar Worldpanel Ireland which monitors the groceries bought in 3,000 demographically representative households across the country.

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