Morrisons is winning the supermarket pandemic battle - Ros Snowdon

Bradford-based Morrisons was once again the star performer among the big four in the latest Kantar data, with sales rising 11.5 per cent in the 12 weeks to October 4.

Kantar said that overall take-home grocery sales jumped 10.6 per cent over the last four weeks, an acceleration from September’s figures.

The research firm said that shoppers are moving a greater proportion of their eating and drinking back into the home.

It said this is likely a response to rising Covid-19 infection rates, greater restrictions on opening hours in the hospitality sector and the end of the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

Meanwhile, supermarket alcohol sales were worth £261m more this month than last year, with pubs, bars and restaurants limited by the 10pm curfew.

The 10pm curfew means that many people leave the pub to continue the party elsewhere, having stocked up in the supermarket earlier in the day or on their way home.

The curfew has been criticised for encouraging people to leave the pub at the same time and then crowd onto packed public transport. With serval drinks inside them, revellers are less likely to maintain social distancing.

Kantar said that while online sales have risen across the board, Morrisons is also managing to grow store sales.

Footfall is down everywhere year on year as people avoid unnecessary supermarket trips amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Morrisons is managing to persuade customers to buy bigger baskets and spend more money on each trip.

The nature of Morrisons’ estate provides a big boost, in that its stores are not too big and not too small and customers don’t have to travel far, but can get everything they need.

Another reason for Morrisons’ outperformance is that it offers far more promotions than its rivals. Currently, 45 per cent of spending in Morrisons is on a deal and a considerable amount of that is on multi-buy promotions, which many other retailers have walked away from.

This appears to be resonating with Morrisons’ shopper base.

Multi-buy promotions don’t necessarily save you money at the till, but it means you get more for your money so it can be an effective tool for building basket sizes.

Kantar said market leader Tesco came second among the big four, with a 9.2 per cent increase in sales. Sainsbury’s was third with a 6.8 per cent rise in sales and Leeds-based Asda was fourth with a 5.4 per cent rise in sales.

Kantar said that Asda is being held back by its estate of large stores.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said Asda’s store estate puts it in a difficult position at a time of pandemic.

Shoppers don’t want to take long trips to big stores, where they have to follow social distancing, which can make the whole process much more difficult and time consuming.

Another issue for Asda is that unlike its rivals, it doesn’t have any sort of local or convenience option.

Mr McKevitt said: ”The billion dollar question, that I can’t answer but everyone is speculating about, is will the Issa brothers, with their knowledge of convenience retailing, will they move Asda in any kind of meaningful way towards another way of selling their goods through smaller stores?”

There has been speculation that Asda’s new owners, the Issa brothers, could use their petrol forecourts to roll out a nationwide Asda convenience store operation.

The Issa brothers have confirmed that they will invest in expanding Asda’s convenience operations, but it is not yet clear how they will do this.

It seems a no-brainer that once the deal gets past the competition authorities, the Issa brothers should turn their 400-strong petrol forecourt estate into 400 mini Asdas.

This would solve Asda’s lack of convenience stores and give the Issas access to Asda’s lower prices.