Louise

We start 2021 with the hope the newly approved vaccines will bring a happier new year. Is great to see the UK Supermarkets not just remaining open as essential stores, but offering their convenient locations as part of the solution to the immense task of vaccinating the population – floorspace and refrigerated logistics networks.

We see Morrisons this morning as the first UK grocery operator to report trading over the Christmas period, beating market expectations with a 9.3% rise in like for like sales.

Despite the welcome progress on rolling out the vaccine here in the UK, we expect some consumer behaviours to be changed forever – work from home and online grocery.

We see Supermarkets once again in focus with another lockdown and key European borders closing.

Sainsbury’s announced this morning that due to stronger than expected sales they would be increasing their full year profit before tax expectations to be 5% higher than in 2019. The increased forecasts and market visibility has also allowed the grocery operator to support its shareholders by issuing a special dividend of 7.3p that will be paid in lieu of the final 2019/2020 dividend.

The combination of a second lockdown and Christmas shopping has certainly had an impact on the UK grocery market with the latest Kantar figures showing a 13.9% increase in take home grocery sales in the four weeks to 29th November 2020, Representing the fastest growth since August.

This morning, Tesco announced its ambition to repay £585m of business rates relief that it received during the coronavirus pandemic. This is a significant step taken by the UKs largest grocery operator and is the first in the sector to do so.