Aldi enjoys record Christmas trading as grocery shoppers seek bargain prices

Discount supermarket sold more than 17 million bottles of wine, champagne and prosecco during December, along with 50 million mince pies and almost 100 million sprouts

Aldi enjoyed its best ever Christmas trading in the UK as it racked up almost £1bn in sales during December.

The discount grocer said it had welcomed an influx of shoppers from more upmarket rivals, helping sales rise 10 per cent on last year’s festive season.

The week before Christmas was Aldi’s busiest-ever in the UK, with particularly strong sales of premium ranges.

Aldi sold more than 17 million bottles of wine, champagne and prosecco during December – the equivalent of 3.2 million glasses per day. It also sold nearly 50 million mince pies and almost 100 million sprouts.

Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi UK, said: “Although we saw strong growth across all key categories, the standout performance was in our ‘Specially Selected’ brand where shoppers treated themselves to premium products for a fraction of the price they would have paid elsewhere for similar quality products.”

He also hailed the “collective commitment, energy and enthusiasm” of Aldi’s staff over the Christmas period.

“We begin the new year with great momentum as the UK’s fastest-growing supermarket and on the back of record Christmas sales,” Mr Hurley said.

Aldi’s rapid growth has seen it take a 7.6 per cent slice of the UK grocery market, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel. That puts it behind Morrisons, the smallest of Britain’s “big four” supermarkets, with a 10.3 per cent share of the nation’s grocery sales. Fellow discount chain Lidl has 5.6 per cent.

But Thomas Brereton, a retail analyst at GlobalData, pointed to some signs that Aldi’s breakneck growth may be slowing: “The retailer has only unveiled its results for the final week before Christmas, and while certainly a crucial period, hints at slightly weaker growth throughout the rest of the month.

“And as Aldi’s UK store portfolio increased by 8.5 per cent year-on-year [opening its 800th store in the fourth quarter of 2018], like-for-like sales are probably not as pleasing as it would have hoped.

“Despite this, Aldi has restated its aim of 1,200 UK stores by 2025, and will continue to soak up customers from other major grocers looking to save money on food expenditure.”

The broadly positive results come at a crucial time for retailers, who endured a tough 2018 and face a host of headwinds including rising business rates, a higher minimum wage and fierce competition, not least from online rivals.

Trading updates this week from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are predicted to show consumers have shifted their spending towards lower-cost options.

Morrisons announced on Monday that it had slashed the prices of more than 900 products in a bid to attract cash-strapped customers.

To defend its market share, Morrisons said it would slash the price of “store cupboard favourites” such as tinned tomatoes, cereal, sandwich fillers, ready meals and multivitamins by 20 per cent.