The latest view of the UK grocery market and the performance of its leading retailers from Worldpanel by Numerator reveals little change in the fastest-growing retailers, although market share shifts continue.

Grocery price inflation rises for the first time in four months

For the four weeks to 22 February 2026, grocery prices were 4.3% higher compared to the same period last year. With total sales for the four weeks growing 3.4%, market growth is being driven by price inflation rather than real-terms value gains.

Although this is now a well-established trend, it is a concern to see price inflation once again rising, having fallen for the previous four months. This contrasts with wider CPI inflation slowing to 3.0% in January.

IGD’s latest forecast for retail food and drink prices expects prices to rise between 3.3% and 4.3% in 2026, with a mid-case average of 3.8%. In 2027, we expect prices to rise 2.8% to 3.8%, with a mid-case average of 3.3%.

The current conflict in the Middle East has the potential to severely impact energy markets, which could push inflation higher. The Persian Gulf is a vital source of oil and natural gas, most of which transits via the Strait of Hormuz.

Ocado Retail maintains pace as fastest-growing retailer

Total grocery market sales for the 12 weeks to 22 February 2026 grew by 3.7% compared to the same period last year.

Ocado Retail remains the fastest-growing retailer in the market, a position held since September 2025, with sales growing 15.1%. Reporting its 2025 financial results, Ocado Group cited that Ocado Retail’s strong growth in the past year was due to order growth of 13.1%, customer growth of 12.5% and an improved frequency of purchases.

Ocado highlighted the strength of its technical proposition, enabling an extended product range of over 46,000 items, visible shelf life information and 99% of items delivered.

Lidl holds second place, with sales growing 10.0%, representing its 12th consecutive period of double-digit growth. M&S’s grocery sales grew 7.0%, benefitting from its strong presence in the chilled ready meals category in the run-up to Valentine’s Day.

Waitrose continued its resurgence, with sales up 5.6%, its highest rate of growth since March 2021.

Sainsbury’s, benefitting from 15 new supermarkets in 2025 from the addition of converted Homebase sites, added 400,000 shoppers for the period, with sales growing 5.2%.

Meanwhile, sales at market leader Tesco grew 4.5%.

Aldi’s sales grew 3.1%, underperforming the market. Sales at Iceland and Morrisons remained in growth, but underperformed the market, at 2.7% and 2.3% respectively.

Sales at Co-op and Asda declined 1.6% and 2.6% respectively. For Asda, the results are a further decline on top of sales declining in the same period in 2025. Despite this, it represents Asda’s best performance in Worldpanel’s data since August last year. Co-op’s sales are on par with its recent sales performance.

The impact on market share

Tesco’s performance is strong enough to grow its market share by 0.2 percentage points compared to the same period in 2025, to now stand at 28.5%.

Sainsbury’s and Lidl also gain share, growing 0.3 and 0.5 percentage points to 16.1% and 7.8% respectively. Waitrose’s share grows by 0.1 percentage points to 4.8%. Ocado’s share increases from 1.9% to 2.1%

Aldi and Morrisons see market share declines. Aldi drops 0.1 percentage points to 10.1%, while Morrisons share fell by the same margin to 8.4%.

Co-op’s share is down 0.3 percentage points to 5.0%. Asda’s share suffers the most, falling 0.8 percentage points to stand at 11.5%

Growing competition at both ends of the market

Whilst the latest sales data doesn’t hold any great surprises, with food prices remaining the top concern for shoppers, we are seeing the emergence of a growing trend of polarisation in shopping behaviour.

At the premium end of the market, Ocado continues to lead growth and is joined by a strengthening of sales at M&S and Waitrose. At the value end of the market, Lidl continues to perform as the fastest-growing physical retailer.

Meanwhile, Tesco and Sainsbury’s continue to report strong sales of premium private label ranges while also maintaining a strong price position with their respective Aldi Price Match schemes.

Asda’s continued decline means all eyes remain on the retailer. Following the disruption caused by its transition to new IT systems during the third-quarter of 2025, which set back its recovery plan by six months, the coming months will reveal whether its faith in returning to the Rollback to Asda Price as its key price investment has paid off.

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