Less booze, more veg is new January trend

IRELAND turned its back on the booze and embraced ‘Veganuary’ after the excesses of Christmas.

Alternative milk sales soared last month, while the amount of meat, fish and chicken we bought decreased, according to the latest sales figures.

Veganuary is a vegan movement that encourages people to give up meat and dairy products for January.

Matthew Botham of Kantar, which monitors supermarket sales, said: ‘Retailers embraced Veganuary, which brought plant-based foods to the fore. Sales of alternative milks grew by 20%, while meat, fish and poultry dropped by 3%.

‘Though shoppers reduced their consumption of meat and dairy, households didn’t turn their backs on animal products completely.

‘This points to an increase in flexitarian lifestyles as people look to cut back rather than go cold turkey.’

Following a record-breaking festive season for the Irish grocery market, the buzz around Veganuary and Dry January failed to outweigh falling consumer confidence post-Christmas.

Figures from Kantar for the 12 weeks to January 26 show growth slowed to 1.3%, the slowest rate recorded since March 2017, as shoppers tightened their purse strings ahead of the General Election.

Dry January also made its mark on supermarket sales, with the percentage of households abstaining from alcohol purchases increasing to 22%, up from 19% this time last year. The only retailer at which this trend was bucked was SuperValu, which grew alcohol sales by 7.6%.

Lidl was the strongest performing retailer in this period, increasing its market share by 0.4 percentage points to 11%. Mr Botham said: ‘More and more people are picking up their groceries at the retailer and 71.4% of households chose to shop at Lidl at least once over the latest period.’

SuperValu was the only other retailer to accelerate growth over the 12 weeks as its market share rose slightly to 21.7%.

Tesco’s sales were unchanged from last year as the grocer conceded 0.3 percentage points of market share.

Mr Botham said: ‘Part of Tesco’s response was to take action by addressing consumer demand for sustainable packaging.

‘The retailer made headlines with the announcement that it was removing plastic wrap from its multi-pack tinned items while still offering the multi-buy deal to customers.’

Aldi proved its green agenda by removing the polystyrene trays from its pizzas, and it again posted strong growth this period – increasing sales by 5.4%.

Meanwhile, Dunnes had another formidable 12 weeks, with sales rising by 3.3%.

However, that was a slower increase than in recent months.