Irish supermarket chain Supervalu is within a hair's breadth of becoming Ireland's largest supermarket chain, figures published on Monday from Kantar Worldpanel show.

Overall, Irish supermarket sales grew by 1.2 per cent in the 12 weeks ending February 1st, marking the 11th consecutive period of growth for Irish supermarkets.

Georgieann Harrington, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said that Irish consumers are now visiting supermarkets more often and putting more in their baskets when they go.

“On average, consumers increased their grocery spending by €5 in the latest period,” she said.

Supervalu enjoyed growth of 0.2 per cent during the period, giving it a 24.9 per cent market share, putting it just 0.3 percentage points behind Tesco, which suffered another bad quarter.

The beleaguered UK grocery giant saw its sales fall by 2.1 per cent in the quarter, while the best peformer was Dunnes Stores. Thanks to offers such as money back vouchers on purchases worth more than €25, the Irish chain reported sales growth of 1.7 per cent during the period, the strongest performance for the retailer since July 2014.

Dunnes attracted an extra 17,000 shoppers through its doors this period and has seen its basket spend increase by 3 per cent to just over €35.

Elsewhere, German discount operators Lidl and Aldi continued their strong performance with double digit sales growth of 12.5 per cent and 11.5 per cent respectively. Both retailers continue to increase footfall with over 60 per cent of Irish households shopping in each retailer in the past 12 weeks. Lidl has seen shoppers visit its stores more often while Aldi has continued to increase the amount shoppers spend on each visit.