Prosecco, Champagne and British Olympic glory boost supermarket sales

Tesco records best sales performance in two years as people guzzle litres more bubbly, but Aldi and Lidl still gaining on 'Big Four'

Sparkling wine sales have underpinned stronger results for the county's biggest supermarkets (Rex features)

Olympic and Paralympic sporting glory toasted with lashings of bubbly lifted the Big Four supermarkets to their best sales growth for more than two years.

Industry figures show the major grocery chains staged a fightback over the summer against German discount names Aldi and Lidl. Surging sales of prosecco and champagne, as well as popular promotions caught the celebratory mood of the nation as Team GB athletes brought home a record medal haul.

Analysts, Kantar Worldpanel said sales of fizz jumped by more than a third over the past four weeks while alcohol sales overall were up 8.5 per cent.

Further good news came from Nielsen, whose data showed Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda all saw two consecutive months in a row of sales growth for the first time in more than two years.

Tesco, still comfortably the nation’s biggest supermarket, racked up its strongest performance since 2014 after struggling in recent years with falling sales and an accounting scandal.

The beginnings of a recovery at the retailer were in part thanks to its popular summer “drinks festival”, which slowed falling sales to 0.2 per cent year-on-year in the 12 week period. However, it continued to lose market share, falling slightly from 28.2 per cent to 28.1 per cent.

It was not alone - all of the Big Four lost ground at the expense of smaller rivals at the top and bottom end of the market.

Sainsbury's shunned hard discount promotions in favour of everyday lower prices but took a hit at the tills as a result, bagging 1.4 per cent less sales than in this quarter last year. The slump pulled its market share down to 15.9 per cent from 16.2 per cent a year ago.

Struggling Asda booked another fall in revenues, which were down 5.2 per cent. The Wal-Mart-owned grocer saw its share of the sector tumble to 15.7 per cent from 16.7 per cent in twelve months.

Morrisons, the Big Four basket case just a couple of years ago continued its recovery with a third successive quarter like-for-like sales growth. Overall sales were down 2.3 per cent as it closed loss-making stores equivalent to 5 per cent of its shop space.

Upmarket Waitrose hit a record market share of 5.3 per cent, but this came at the expense of discounting - Its half price “half price event” hlped sales rise 3.4 per cent

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “While overall sales growth has been slow, consumers have been keen to celebrate Britain's Olympic and Paralympic golden summer.”

Aldi and Lidl continued to steal market share and posted more stellar results, with sales soaring 11.6 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively. Aldi has now captured 6.2 per cent of the market, while Aldi is at 4.6 per cent.

But Mike Watkins, Nielsen's UK head of retailer and business insight, hailed the performance of the Big Four: “We're seeing the green shoots of recovery for the leading supermarkets in their battle against the discounters and price deflation,” he said.