New figures from consultants Kantar show the rate of food inflation has dropped slightly for the first time in two years.
Kantar's latest figures for the 12-week period to April 16 show the rate of inflation dropped from 16.8% to 16.6%.
Today's figures also show the value of take home groceries had increased as prices per pack rose up 10.9% in the four weeks to mid April.
Shoppers' visits to supermarkets were also up over 10% as shoppers are tending to shop for less items but more often.
The figures also show continued growth in consumers choosing own brand labels, which rose by 15.6% compared to an 8% increase in branded sales.
Shoppers enjoyed more celebrations in April, with Easter Sunday and a bank holiday weekend, along with US President Joe Biden's much publicised visit to Ireland.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Today's Kantar figures show that sales of wine, vegetables, lamb and chilled desserts soared by an additional €3.4m, €5.1m, €1.5m and €1.3m respectively as consumers splashed out on Easter dinners.
Sales of Easter chocolate confectionary also soared 13% with shoppers spending an additional €3.7m year-on-year.
Sales of own label Easter eggs rose by 28.1% with branded eggs seeing slower growth at 13.9% year-on-year.
However, 93% of all Easter eggs sold were still branded products and 37.7% were bought on promotion, up 15.4% compared to last year, Kantar said.
Meanwhile, online sales remained strong over the 12-week period, up 4%, with shoppers spending an additional €6.5m online year-on-year.
But shoppers returned to online platforms less often, down 3.5% year-on-year, and they continue to buy less volume compared to last year.
Today's figures show that Dunnes holds the highest share amongst all retailers at 23.2% and with growth of 15.3% year-on-year. This stems from an influx of new shoppers to store, up 1.4 percentage points, and shoppers returning more often, up 6.9%.
Tesco holds 22.4% of the market with growth of 14.9% year-on-year. With the strongest frequency growth amongst all retailers - up 13.2% year-on-year - Tesco also saw an increase in new shoppers in store, up 1.7 percentage points.
SuperValu holds 20.7% of the market with growth of 5.7%. SuperValu shoppers make the most trips in-store when compared to all retailers, an average of 23 trips over the 12-week period, which is up 12.6% on an annual basis.
Meanwhile Lidl holds 13.3% share and growth of 14.4% year-on-year. An influx of new shoppers and more frequent trips contributed an additional €43.9m to overall performance.
Finally, Aldi holds 12.1% with growth of 11.4%. A strong boost in new shoppers and more frequent trips contributed an additional €55.2m to overall performance, Kantar said today.
We need to see prices falling for consumers, says Minister for Finance
Mr McGrath noted that it did not take very long for the consumer prices to go up when the wholesale prices moved upwards in the market.
"I do think we need to hear a better explanation and we need more detail from the energy providers in relation to the prices that consumers are being charged because the reductions at the wholesale level actually have been quite dramatic.
"It is understandable that there would be some lag in the pass-through of those wholesale reductions to consumers at a retail level, I do think that we need to begin to see that now. Any relief would be welcomed," said Mr McGrath.
