A new survey shows that 32% of shoppers in Ireland admit they are "struggling" to make ends meet, an increase from 23% in March of this year.
Kantar said its research suggests that the average annual shop is set to rise by €868 a year, which at a basket level represents an extra €3.36 per shopping trip.
Kantar cautioned that the average annual grocery bill will go from €6,999 to €7,867 if consumers do not make any changes to what they buy and how they shop to cut costs.
Today's figures also show that grocery price inflation hit a record high of 12.4% in the 12 weeks to October 3.
Kantar said an 8.6% increase in price per pack saw shoppers spend an additional €99.1m compared to the same time last year, while the number of shopping trips increased by 3.8%.
The rising cost of everyday essentials is hitting shoppers hard it added, with the average price of staples like butter, milk and bread now 28% higher than this time last year.
Emer Healy, Senior Retail Analyst at Kantar, said that as consumers change their shopping behaviour to deal with the extra pressures on household budgets, supermarket own-label ranges are benefitting.
She said sales of retailer own-label lines jumped 7.2% in the latest 12 weeks under review with shoppers spending an additional €88.3m year-on-year.
Value own-label ranges saw the strongest growth, up 23.5% year-on-year with shoppers spending an additional €11.3m.
But online sales saw a decline for the first time since March 2022, with shoppers decreasing their trips online by 5.5% and replacing that with trips to physical stores instead, with such trips up 5.5%.
In the last four weeks, online visits were down 3% and volumes fell by 6.4% with 1.8% of shoppers leaving the online platform in October.
Kantar also said that as household budgets tighten, shoppers are looking to their food and drink spend for small luxuries to enjoy at home.
Sales of branded take home soft drinks, chocolate biscuit bars and crisps jumped 5.4%, 10.9% and 6.5% respectively during the last 12 weeks.
As Halloween approaches, sales of pumpkins have jumped 24% year-on-year with shoppers spending an additional €1.3m on sugar confectionery and €816,000 on chocolate confectionery so far.
Today's figures also show that Dunnes has the highest market share among the supermarket groups with 22.7% and growth of 8.2% year-on-year.
Kantar said the Dunnes growth stems from an influx of new shoppers, up 5.3%, which contributed an additional €32.3m to their performance.
Tesco holds 21.8% of the market with growth of 5.2% year-on-year as a result of an 8.9% increase in shoppers returning to store more often.
SuperValu holds 21.2% of the market and continues to see shoppers make the most trips in-store when compared to all retailers, with an average of 21.2 trips per year, up 3.5% year-on-year.
Lidl holds a 13.1% share with growth of 5.6% year-on-year. New shoppers contributed an additional €11.8m to their performance, alongside existing shoppers returning more often.
Aldi holds 12.7% of the market with growth of 2.4% year-on-year, Kantar added.
