The official "Be Ready" initiative spurred notable demand across staples, sending hand sanitiser sales up 83% and bottled water purchases up 67% over ten days compared to last year. While Barclays revealed that older generations are far more prepared than younger demographics, general retail spending remained resilient during the Halloween season. Meanwhile, overall grocery sales rose 2.2% year on year heading into the golden quarter, though inflation ticked upward to 2.6%.
Key points
Government civil resilience guidance successfully motivated shoppers to build emergency r…: Government civil resilience guidance successfully motivated shoppers to build emergency reserves without inducing widespread retail panic.
Budget pressures persist across households as grocery price inflation reached 2.6% alongs…: Budget pressures persist across households as grocery price inflation reached 2.6% alongside higher home energy costs.
Asda struggled relative to industry peers, remaining Britain's third-largest supermarket…: Asda struggled relative to industry peers, remaining Britain's third-largest supermarket despite a 0.5% contraction in total sales.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
British shoppers have been stocking up on essentials such as bottled water, tinned goods and hand sanitiser, but did not panic buy after the government advised people to prepare for emergencies, shopping data has shown.
Sales of essentials jumped in the 10 days after the government launched its Be Ready campaign, which encourages households to prepare for up to three days in the event of disruption to essential services from incidents such as cyber-attacks or extreme weather.
In the 10 days after the campaign launch, sales of hand sanitiser surged by 83% compared with the same period last year, while sales of bottled water rose 67% and tinned and jarred goods went up 37%, according to Worldpanel by Numerator’s monthly grocery report for Great Britain.
The number of people buying tinned meat each day after the launch of the campaign rose by 43%, equivalent to an extra 400,000 shoppers a day, but the typical amount bought remained at about 500g in terms of pack size.
Fraser McKevitt, the head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel by Numerator, said: “Shoppers…
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