The Insights Family Finds That Aldi Has Overtaken Asda to Become the 2nd Favourite Supermarket Among UK Parents

It’s been widely reported about the challenges that households face with the UK economy’s inflation, increasing cost-of-living, and slow growth, and supermarkets in the UK are battling to keep families’ loyalty when it comes to the ‘weekly family shop’.

Parents Insights, the UK’s largest ongoing tracker of UK families’ attitudes, behaviour, and consumption, surveying more than 10,000 UK parents every year, has seen that Aldi’s popularity in Q1 2023 has increased by +27% since Q1 2022, which has seen it now overtake Asda as the 2nd favourite supermarket amongst parents of kids, tweens, and teens (1–16-year-olds) in the UK. Additionally, Aldi is closing in on Tesco’s reign as the go-to supermarket for UK families, with just 7% more UK families reporting to choose Tesco over Aldi in Q1 of this year. However, this gap has reduced by -40% since the start of 2022 as Aldi’s popularity has grown significantly.

Parents Insights UK makes it clear that UK families’ top concerns at the moment are all financially related — living costs (21%), money (14%), and the economy (6.2%) — with this growing by +10% in the last year. Interestingly, in Q1 2023, UK parents that reported Aldi to be their favourite supermarket chain over-indexed on all three of these concerns compared to the average household, indicating that its low-cost approach to grocery retail was winning over their hearts against long-standing brands like Asda. This low-cost approach is what seems to be driving Aldi’s favourability amongst UK families, with 1 in 4 parents saying it is their favourite supermarket chain and a growth of +3% since January this year, whereas just under 1 in 3 parents lean towards Tesco, but its favourability has seen a -11% decline since January. Could this low-cost approach also be the deciding factor in Aldi’s market share growth, and potentially surpassing Tesco as the UK’s go-to supermarket?

“Our data tracks all elements of the kids, teens, parents, and family ecosystems, and it is fair to say that we are seeing the rise of challenging brands across the board — who are appealing more and more to the next generation of parents. Aldi’s performance over the last 2 years has been extremely strong, with more and more UK parents favouring that brand — which is a powerful sentiment to the attitudes of British parents. It further demonstrates why organisations need to be putting kids, teens, parents, and families at the heart of everything they do, as failure to do so can be significant.”Rachel Bardill, SVP Marketing & Partnerships, The Insights Family

The Insights Family have produced its latest complimentary report — titled ‘Mini CEOs, Maximum Impact: Let us introduce the fastest growing opportunity for your organisation’ — that highlights the state of play for kids and families in the UK. They have drawn some clear conclusions about where their data provides insights into kids as a growing powerhouse in the family and the next generation of consumers.

Source: The Insights Family, Parents Insights UK, Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022, 1–16-year-olds.