It’s safe to say that since their introduction into the UK market, Britain has fallen in love with discount supermarkets. After the financial crisis in 2008, the discounters’ ‘high quality, low price’ model was exactly the tonic the British people were craving. With purses tightly squeezed and brand loyalty waning, consumers wanted to buy quality food on a smaller budget and that is exactly what the discount grocery stores allowed them to do. 

"Across GB the state of the grocery market is one of a changing landscape, with the previously clear divisions between supermarkets, convenience stores and discounters becoming blurred. Convenience stores are becoming more and more like mini-supermarkets with a larger chilled food offer, food-to-go selection and fresh produce. Discounters have made similar moves, opening larger stores with some adding in fashion concession partners to increase their offer to shoppers and the Big 4 supermarkets have seen their market share erode in the last couple of years." Supermarkets, Discounters and Convenience Stores', March 2018, Report by LDC

This annual report looks at the grocery sector across the Big 4 supermarkets, discounters (Aldi, Lidl, Home Bargains etc) and convenience stores over five years (2012 - 2017), with a focus on changes over 12 months from January 2017 - January 2018.

Yet again, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Lidl can be heralded as the fastest growing UK grocer. In their latest data to 12 weeks ending 16^th July we see them neck and neck with Waitrose at 5.1% market share, trailing behind their discount counterpart Aldi by just 1.9%.

"The landscape of convenience retail in Britain has undergone huge upheavals in the past five years. The latest wave of expansion may have reached a natural end, yet there is good reason to believe that even more fundamental changes lie in the future, as competing store formats continue to proliferate and non-store, non-traditional retailing begins to command a bigger portion of a market worth more than £150 billion each year." Introduction, 'Supermarkets, Discounters and Convenience Stores', June 2017 Report by LDC 

On June 14th, LDC published their annual Supermarkets, Discounters and Convenience Stores report built to answer two fundamental questions: what are the trends and where are the opportunities?

Matthew Hopkinson, Director at LDC, talks about Supermarkets, Discounters and Convenience stores on Wednesday's You & Yours program.

Our latest report titled In the balance, looks at the health and trends in the Retail and Leisure industry from the first half of 2016.

The report begins by looking at the current UK Economy, especially in light of the Brexit decision in June. It then focuses on the Health of the Retail industry across Great Britain in terms of vacancy rates by retail offer, location type and geography, as well as persistent vacancy levels.

In the second half of the report, we look at the latest openings and closures activity for both independent and multiple retail and leisure occupiers across Great Britain.

Matthew Hopkinson talks to You & Yours about the latest figures from LDC's analysis of the convenience stores format across GB.

Listen to Matthew Hopkinson discuss the following:

• Why so many places have seen the number of convenience stores decline in 2015 
• Morrisons' exiting the convenience store market
• Whether convenience stores are going to continue to grow in 2016 and 2017
• How competition from the likes of Aldi and Lidl may effect the 'Big 4' supermarkets' convenience stores
• The impact of online food orders such as Amazon

Matthew Hopkinson talks to Radio 5 Live's Wake Up To Money show about the latest figures from LDC's analysis of the convenience stores format across GB.

Listen to Matthew Hopkinson discuss the following:

• Why we may be at a saturation point with convenience stores across Great Britain
• The closure of 132 M Locals
• How the consumer behaviour of eating out or ordering in becomes a challenge to supermarkets and convenience

The latest report by LDC looks at the growth of the Convenience Stores over the last five years (2011 - 2015).

This report looks at the fastest growing convenience stores assessing the fastest growing retailers' convenience store formats and which towns are seeing the most new stores.

Matthew Hopkinson, Director at LDC comments: "Whilst supermarkets continued to grow their larger store formats over the last five years it has been their convenience store formats that have been growing at twice the rate of these formats."