Sainsbury’s is offering 37.8% more product promotions this Christmas than it did last year as it takes the lead against other UK supermarkets, new data has shown.
The research from The Grocer using Assosia data found that while the Big 4 grocer offered the least amount of promotions this time in 2021, it now has the most.
As of 5 December, Sainsbury’s had 7,223 deals including 195 more fresh food promotions, 293 more food cupboard offers and an additional 144 across beer, wine and spirits.
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However, promotional activity is on the rise across most of the UK’s leading supermarkets as the data found that 27.5% of all products were on offer on 12 December.
Leading retailer Tesco has added promotions across 9.9% more of its lines, with the figure at an additional 5.3% for Asda and 1.1% at Waitrose.
While most supermarkets have increased food and drink deals both in-store and online, Morrisons was found to be the only grocery retailer surveyed to have removed promotions by 5.7%.
Across alcoholic beverages, 55.3% of all beers, wine and spirits were on promotions earlier this month as the figure hit 4,381.
“A lot of the acceleration in promotions appears to be a pre-emptive arms race from the major supermarkets in anticipation of the fact many shoppers might be on the brink of switching across to the discounters,” IGD global insight leader, Bryan Roberts told The Grocer.
This comes as a survey by Ubamarket last month found that over half of Brits no longer see the benefits of discount supermarkets to save money during the cost-of-living crisis and are instead choosing to spread their weekly shop across multiple stores amid rising inflation.
