Online grocery business Ocado PLC (LON:OCDO) has seen its share of the UK market soar in the past four weeks, according to the latest data from research group Kantar.
Total grocery sales jumped by 18.9% in the period to June 14, as people under lockdown either ordered online or went to their local convenience store.
Online sales rose by 91% year-on-year as almost 20% of UK households bought something, Kantar said.
Ocado’s sales rose by 42% with the surge boosting its share of the market to 1.7%, up from 32.5% in the previous month's update.
Convenience stores also racked up big sales rises with the Co-op’s chain of local stores seeing a 34.5% improvement.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “The cumulative impact of lockdown has helped Ocado to achieve its highest ever market share - hitting 1.7% over the past 12 weeks thanks to an industry-high sales growth of 42.2%."
The rush for convenience also boosted the local arms of the major grocery chains, such as Tesco Express said Kantar.
Tesco (LON:TSCO) was the best performer of the big grocers with sales growth of 12.1%, but all of the big four of Sainsbury’s (LON:SBRY), Asda and Morrisons (LON:MRW) did well as the coronavirus lockdown sparked a rush of food buying.
Iceland, where founder Malcolm Walker is now back in charge of the business again, was another notable performer with sales rising by 31% over the past twelve weeks.
Grocery inflation picked up even further, to 4.0% for the 12-week period June 14, from 3.1% a month earlier and 1.9% in the April update.