December: Supermarkets lose sales, bazaar gains

LAST UPDATE: 09.05

By George Lampiris

Organized food retail sales fell 1% in December 2021 as a whole, compared to December 2021, according to data from Nielsen IQ. In fact, December is a month of special importance for the industry, as during it more than 10% of the annual turnover takes place.

Strong growth for bazaar products

Interestingly, consumers turned to products other than basic goods, such as clothing and footwear, electrical and electronic appliances, which they bought in supermarkets. The specific products are even widely traded through the Sklavenitis stores, which maintains a wide range of such products in supermarkets over 2,500 sq.m. Lidl is also one of the supermarkets that maintains momentum with these products in its stores.

It is indicative that among the large product categories such as food-beverages, personal care items, Bazaar products – ie clothing, footwear, appliances – recorded the highest growth rate of 14.9%, while only in the last week of December the increase of sales reached 39.9%.

2.4% drop for fast consumer goods

In terms of fast-moving consumer goods, the decline was 2.4%. According to the measurement company, this is mainly due to the more restrained overall demand for the food and beverage category, which moved downwards by 2.9% lower sales in value. At the same time, in all weeks of December, fast-moving consumer goods recorded a negative trend, with the exception of the last week (27 / 12-02 / 01), in which sales increased by 5.1%, compared to the same period last year (28 / 12-03 / 01), due to the fact that this week had an additional day of operation of food stores. In terms of fresh products by weight, they showed a negative trend, at -0.9% for the whole month.

Strong player pasta with double-digit growth rate

At the level of sub-categories, pasta stood out, which in the last month of the year showed a double-digit growth rate of + 19.5%, more than double what they recorded for the whole year, while the very good performance of the tea and tea category in This month at + 9.8% managed to hold back the negatively moving annual course of the category (-1.1%).

In terms of product categories such as personal hygiene and beauty products – hair dyes or cosmetics – they plunged their sales by 20.8% and 35.9% respectively, as in December this year the restrictive measures of 2020 did not apply, which had favored the specific categories.