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After decades of growth, Britain’s top four supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda – have struggled in recent years to contain the threat of discount retailers Aldi and Lidl. Capitalising on consumers’ penny-pinching associated with the recession, the German discounters have gained market share at a steady rate (see box, p54 ), while the major players continue to engage in a price war. Competition is such that there have been 18 successive falls in grocery inflation; shoppers are now paying less for a representative basket of groceries than they did in 2014. 

While the market share of each of the UK’s ‘big four’ supermarkets fluctuates, the latest annual Brand Finance Retail 50 report revealed Asda to be the only one to have avoided a drop in brand value in the past year. 

Liz Lamb, senior director of insight and pricing at Asda, believes that – while there will be “a hundred and one reasons” behind this trend – one ...