UK’s Top Two in Grocery have got their mojo back!

Tesco and Sainsburys have a combined grocery market share of in excess of 40% and both are showing that they can successfully fight off challenges from the discounters. Tesco is on the march towards 30% market share. At least that’s their bold ambition as revealed by their new UK CEO Ashwin Prasad at a recent supplier event, intended to show brand owners that they cannot be beaten on value and quality, as well as service and availability.

Having a comprehensive range of products is crucial to their strategy. Not only is this a very clear point of difference from the limited assortment discounters, it also helps to distinguish them from other supermarkets fighting them on price like Asda, whose performance has lagged consistently behind the No 1 retailer over some years now.

Tesco’s current market share has been inching up for a while now (27.8% from recent Kantar figures). At its one time peak it was not far off 32% (some 18 years ago), but that was at a time when the two most important discounter competitors (combined share today 19%) were negligible players with a share of only 4% combined of grocery (it was the financial crisis which followed soon after which helped to turbo charge their growth rate).

Sainsburys at end June 2025 report their highest market share in 9 years (The Times). Their ‘food first’ strategy appears to be paying dividends as recent like for like sales have increased +4.7% in the last 4 months. A combination of price matching Aldi across a number of products to prove their price credentials plus expansion of their Taste the Difference premium private label range (+18% in sales over the latest period), appears to be paying dividends. Not to mention being helped somewhat by the empty shelves following the cyber attack faced by competitor Marks & Spencer!

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