The United Kingdom’s grocery landscape has traditionally been dominated by the ‘Big Four’ supermarket chains: Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons. However, the landscape has shifted as a result of changing consumer shopping behaviors. The German discounter
, and by July 2025, Aldi had held on to fourth place and experienced double-digit growth to reach a market share of almost 11 percent. Lidl is set to be the next discounter to overtake Morrisons, with just a 0.1 percent market share difference between the competitors in July 2025.
UK supermarkets, convenience stores, discounters, and online retailers had an approximate retail market value of almost 228 billion British pounds in 2025. Supermarkets are, by far, the leading channel and are expected to remain so in 2030. However, the
online market is projected to become increasingly relevant and be worth over 32 billion British pounds by 2030.
Supermarket sales patterns
Food store sales follow a fairly consistent pattern over the course of a year. Typically, sales in food stores and supermarkets peak during the Christmas trading period, see notable increases around Easter, and subside during the summer months. The pandemic also had a notable impact on the pattern of supermarket sales. Looking at
Great Britain's leading supermarket chain Tesco, sales growth peaked at 15.1 percent in summer of 2020. The same was true for other 'Big Four' chains, such as
Asda, or discount supermarkets, such as
Lidl. Since pandemic restrictions eased and life returned to normal, so did supermarket sales. However, during the period of high inflation and the resulting increased cost of many food and beverage items, sales began to creep up again in 2022.
Tesco's sales growth had again almost reached double digits by mid-2023. Growth figures stabilized at around five percent throughout 2024 and are slowly increasing again in 2025.
Food shopping and consumers
In 2024, Statista's Consumers Insights Survey revealed that
consumers across all generations mostly shop at supermarkets for their groceries. Some 78 percent of Gen Z respondents stated that they regularly bought food and drink products at supermarkets. For more than half of UK consumers,
Tesco was the primary supermarket destination in 2025. Tesco's popularity with UK consumers was not limited to in-store shopping. Just over 40 percent of UK consumers said they ordered groceries from Tesco's online store. In addition to the online stores of traditional supermarket chains,
UK consumers chose online grocery stores like Ocado, grocery delivery companies such as Amazon Fresh, or meal kit providers like HelloFresh for their grocery orders.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no
liability for the information given being complete or correct.
Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
data than referenced in the text.
