Food shopping behavior in the UK - statistics & facts

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Published by Emma Bedford, Apr 13, 2022

The grocery market in the United Kingdom has witnessed continuous year-on-year growth since 2004 that culminated in a retail market size exceeding 205 billion British pounds in 2020. This market is expected to continue its steady growth path every year until 2026, with the fastest growth occurring in the online retail channel. Between 2016 and 2026, online retail channels and discounters are expected to gain additional market share in the UK grocery market at the expense of brick-and-mortar supermarkets and hypermarkets. An increase in consumer expenditure on food and non-alcoholic drinks has fueled market growth, increasing from around 67 billion British pounds in 2005 to more than 116 billion pounds in 2020.

The rise of online food shopping in the UK

Online grocery retail was the fastest growing channel for food shopping in recent years in the UK. This could be partly attributed to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which moved most of daily life activities like going to the office or shopping for groceries to the digital realm. Many UK consumers expressed that hygiene and safety concerns altered their grocery shopping behavior since the onset of the pandemic. Some 47 percent of respondents in a survey conducted in January 2021 stated that they worry about safety when visiting brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Such sanitary concerns constitute a key motivation for consumers to resort to food shopping online instead. In a survey conducted in October 2021, up to a third of UK consumers reported doing their grocery shopping mostly (22 percent) or always (11 percent) online, with an additional 20 percent stating their grocery shopping is evenly split between online and in-store. According to the share of visits, tesco.com and asda.com were the two most popular websites for groceries among UK shoppers in 2021.

Sustainability at the center of food shopping habits

Food shoppers in the UK not only flocked towards online purchase channels in recent years but are also moving towards more conscious consumerism. A recent survey revealed that more than a third of UK consumers attempted to have more sustainable food shopping habits by, for example, buying locally produced food and drink (38 percent) or buying unpackaged products/refills (35 percent). Sustainable food shopping doesn’t come without a price tag though, and the majority of food shoppers in the United Kingdom seem to be willing to foot the bill: Some 56 percent of survey respondents reported their willingness to pay between five percent and ten percent extra for sustainably sourced food as of August 2021. The demand for sustainable food seems to be significantly more driven by the younger generations in the UK. Between April 2020 and April 2021, more than two-thirds of Gen Z consumers reported their willingness to pay extra for eco-friendly food, versus a little more than half of Baby Boomers.

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