Sales of supermarket premium own brand ranges exceeded the £1bn milestone for the first time in December 2025, appearing in 92% of UK shopping baskets. 

According to the latest data from Worldpanel by Numerator, premium own brand sales made up 7.5% of overall sales in the four weeks to 28 December – up from 7.1% last year – amid growth of 9%. Within the premium category, £115m was spent on fresh meat, with chilled snacks – such as antipasti – notching up £80m in sales.

Alongside the demand for premium products, spend on promotions and deals made up 33.3% of festive sales – a 1.3% increase from last year – claiming the highest proportion of overall sales since December 2019. An additional £36m was spent on discounted fresh vegetables compared to last Christmas.

During the festive period, take-home sales across all the grocers reached a record £13.8bn, an increase of 3.8% year-on-year, as shoppers spent an average of £476 at supermarkets during the four weeks to 28 December – an additional £15 in comparison to December 2024.

The busiest day for trading was Monday 22 December, yet more trips were made on 23 December. Online retail also reached a total share of 12.2%, growing 7.5%.

Head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel by Numerator, Fraser McKevitt, says “easing inflation” helped to “take the edge off the cost of Christmas this year, giving households a little more room to spend”. Grocery inflation eased slightly to 4.3%.

He calls Christmas 2025 one of “smart savings and considered choices”, seen in the rise in sales of premium ranges and shoppers “leaning on their loyalty cards to get the best deals”.

Discounter success

In line with Worldpanel’s last set of results in the month to 30 November, Ocado was once again the fastest growing grocer, with sales increasing 15% over the 12 weeks to 28 December 2025, versus the same period a year ago. The online retailer now accounts for 2.1% of the market, up from 1.9% last year.

Lidl made the biggest market share gain among the supermarkets, registering a 0.5 percentage point gain on last year which takes the grocer to 7.8% of the market – sixth place behind Morrisons. Despite this being a 0.3 percentage point decline from its market share in the 12 weeks to 30 November 2025, Lidl was the fastest growing bricks-and-mortar retailer over the festive period, following a 5.8% footfall increase and 10% sales growth.

According to the Worldpanel data, the discounters achieved their largest ever share of sales at Christmas, reaching a total of 16.8%. Traditional, large format supermarkets accounted for 60.3% of sales over the period.

Lidl once again exceeded £1bn in turnover during the four weeks to 24 December as its sales increased by 10% overall year-on-year, a 3% rise from last year. Aldi similarly exceeded the £1bn turnover mark, seeing a 3% rise in sales compared to the same period the year prior. Aldi’s market share remained the same at 10.1%, keeping the supermarket in fourth place.

Aldi and Lidl hail ‘best-ever’ Christmas sales as turnover exceeds £1bn

The discounter is, however, closing in on Asda in third place. Asda experienced the biggest decline in market share of the grocers, falling to 11.4% from 12.4% the year prior. Co-op also registered a decline from 5.3% to 5.1%.

Tesco keeps the top spot for market share at 28.7% – rising by 0.2 percentage points – and holds the greatest proportion of the market since March 2015. According to the data, Tesco’s sales were 4.3% higher than in 2024.

In second place by market share is Sainsbury’s at 16.3%, which continues its trend of exceeding 5% growth every month since June 2025. The supermarket achieved sales growth of 5.2% in the month to 28 December.

Morrisons market share stands at 8.5%, with sales up 2.6%. Waitrose claimed 4.7% market share over the festive period amid 4.5% sales growth, while Iceland’s market share stands at 2.3% with sales up 3.4%. 

Seasonal chocolate tubs remained a favourite item of shoppers, despite their price rising above £5 for the first time and average pack sizes shrinking by 5% to 551g. Sales for the category rose 19% in the four weeks to Christmas, bought by nearly 1 million more shoppers.

Alcoholic drinks were purchased by three quarters of British shoppers, while the low and no-alcohol category saw a 14% rise in spend, bought by 2.7 million households. That said, the number of households choosing no- and low-alcohol drinks decreased from 9.6% to 9.5%, suggesting the category is “beginning to mature”, McKevitt explains.