New figures show that grocery price inflation fell for the 12th month in a row in April to the lowest level seen since March 2022.
The latest figures from Kantar show that grocery inflation stood at 2.9% in the 12 weeks to April 14, down 12.9 percentage points compared to the same time last year.
Kantar said its latest pressure group survey shows that Irish consumers have a more positive outlook with fewer people struggling financially thanks to the easing of inflationary pressures.
While around a quarter of shoppers admit they are still struggling, it marks a big improvement on the 32% who reported the same last October.
Today's figures also reveal that take-home grocery sales in Ireland increased by 4% in the four weeks to April 14.
Kantar noted that April was a strong month with shoppers spending more in-store than usual in preparation for the Easter and school holidays.
Volumes per trip increased slightly by 0.4% as did visits to store - up 1%, with shoppers making 21.5 trips on average over the month of April.
Kantar said that consumers remained on the hunt for value when it came to their Easter purchases with 24.9% of sales going through the till being for items on promotion, down 3.7% since January 2024.
This was higher for Easter eggs, with over 43% of value sales on promotion.
Retailers also pushed own label lines to get shoppers through the doors.
Sales of own label products grew ahead of the total market at 6.5% year-on-year, with the holding value share just shy of 48%.
Over the latest 12 weeks, shoppers spent an additional €97m on own label products compared to the same time last year.
Premium own label ranges also performed well with shoppers spending an additional €18.7m on these lines year-on-year, and growth of 12.9% when compared to this time last year.
Brands also saw growth over the 12 weeks at 3.9%, slightly behind the total market.
Today's figures also show that Dunnes holds a 23.9% market share of the grocery market here with growth of 8% year-on-year. Its growth came on the back of more frequent trips, up 4.1%, together with new shopper recruitment. This contributed a combined €32.8m to the overall Dunnes performance.
Tesco holds 23% of the market, up 7.6% year-on-year. Kantar noted that Tesco has the strongest trip frequency growth amongst all retailers, up 8.9% year-on-year, which contributed an additional €62.3m to its overall performance.
SuperValu holds 20.4% of the market with growth of 3.5%. Today's figures show that SuperValu shoppers make the most trips in-store compared to all retailers, an average of 21.8 trips and with strongest growth in volume per trip amongst all retailers, up 5.8% which, contributed an additional €37.4m to its latest performance.
Meanwhile, Lidl holds a 13.6% share of the market with growth of 6.4% year on year. More frequent trips contributed an additional €33m to its overall performance.
And Aldi holds a 11.5% market share. New shopper recruits alongside more frequent trips contributed an additional €8.4m to the discount retailer's performance.
