Key facts
- Worldpanel by Numerator said less than a third of households bought bottled water in October, so the rise was not panic buying.
- Barclays found 31% of 18- to 34-year-olds said they had enough food and water for three days, against 53% of those aged 55 plus.
- Ocado's sales rose 12.3% in the 12 weeks to November 1 and its market share reached a joint record 2.3%.
- Marks & Spencer, which part-owns the Ocado retail business, raised its grocery sales 14.6%, Worldpanel by Numerator said.
- Asda was the only big grocer to report a sales dip, of 0.5%, and its market share fell to 11.3% from 11.6%.
- Grocery sales at Britain's supermarkets rose 2.2% year on year in October, the report said.
British shoppers added bottled water, tinned goods and hand sanitiser to their baskets in the 10 days after the government launched its Be Ready campaign, which advises households to prepare for up to three days of disruption to essential services from incidents such as cyber-attacks or extreme weather, according to Worldpanel by Numerator's monthly grocery report for Great Britain.
Hand sanitiser sales rose 83% against the same period a year earlier, bottled water 67% and tinned and jarred goods 37%, the research firm said. The number of people buying tinned meat each day rose 43%, an extra 400,000 shoppers a day, while the typical pack size stayed at about 500g.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel by Numerator, said shoppers took notice of the campaign but that it was not panic buying, with less than a third of households buying bottled water in October. Growth came from more people adding checklist items to their weekly shop rather than filling trolleys, he said.
Separate Barclays research published the previous week found 27% of people were stockpiling, or considering accumulating, food and drink. It found 31% of 18- to 34-year-olds said they had enough food and drinking water to last at least three days, against 53% of those aged 55 and over. Shoppers also bought more batteries, torches, toiletries and medicines.
The Worldpanel data showed grocery inflation at 2.6% in the four weeks to November 1, up from 2.5% the previous month after slowing in the summer. McKevitt said household budgets had already been squeezed by the October increase in the energy price cap.
Grocery sales at Britain's supermarkets rose 2.2% year on year in October. Ocado's sales rose 12.3% in the 12 weeks to November 1 and its market share reached a joint record 2.3%, while Marks & Spencer, which part-owns the Ocado retail business, lifted its grocery sales 14.6%.
Lidl overtook Morrisons as Britain's fifth-biggest grocer, with sales up 6.6% and market share of 8.6% against Morrisons' 8.3%. Asda was the only big grocer to report a sales dip, of 0.5%, and its market share fell to 11.3% from 11.6%, a task for its new chief executive David Potts.