![\"Pancake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9605837dde2c4de174d79014918adcad.jpeg\")
Sales of pre-made pancake mixes were up 114% (Joe Giddens\/PA) \u00b7 Joe Giddens <\/p>\nGrocery price inflation rose to 4.3% in February after four consecutive months of falls in a blow for households, figures show.<\/p>\n
The increase from January\u2019s 4% came as shoppers held off on Valentine\u2019s Day spending until the last minute, with almost 12% of households picking up a premium meal deal on Friday night alone, according to market research firm Worldpanel by Numerator.<\/p>\n
However, they did eventually spend a collective \u00a339 million on high-end meal deals priced at \u00a310 or more \u2013 seven times higher than the previous week.<\/p>\n
Sales of pre-made pancake mixes were up 114% week on week leading up to Shrove Tuesday, but those making their own batter paid 42p or almost 6% more than last year as the cost of key ingredients reached \u00a37.77.<\/p>\n
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel, said: \u201cLooking ahead to Easter, shoppers will notice that chocolate prices remain high, up 9.3% year on year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this is still a significant rise, the pace of inflation in the category is beginning to ease and is now at its lowest level since September 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shoppers increasingly chose to do their grocery shopping online, with sales made through the internet up 9.7% year on year.<\/p>\n
More than 18 million orders were placed over the four weeks, taking the channel\u2019s share to 13%, the highest level since July 2021.<\/p>\n
Mr McKevitt added: \u201cMore affluent families in London and the south east of England are still the most likely to shop for groceries online.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the channel\u2019s appeal is broadening, with shoppers from a wider range of economic backgrounds increasingly drawn to its convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ocado was once again the fastest growing grocer over the 12 weeks to February 22, a position it has maintained since September 2025.<\/p>\n
Sales of pre-made pancake mixes were up 114% (Joe Giddens\/PA) \u00b7 Joe Giddens <\/p>\n
Lidl recorded double-digit sales growth for the 12th consecutive period, up this time by 10%.<\/p>\n
Tesco saw sales grow by 4.5% to reach market share of 28.5%, while Sainsbury\u2019s increased its market share to 16.1% as sales rose by 5.2% over the 12 weeks.<\/p>\n
Sales at Waitrose achieved its highest rate of growth at 5.6% since March 2021 to reach market share of 4.8%.<\/p>\n
Asda once again saw its sales dip year-on-year, this time by 2.6%, while Co-op\u2019s sales were down 1.6% on last February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grocery price inflation rose to 4.3% in February after four consecutive months of falls in a blow for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,21391,164503,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-456268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-market-share","tag-pancake-mixes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}