Supermarket turnover edges up in 2019
Supermarket turnover posted an annual increase in 2019, albeit less than in previous years, according to IRI Hellas researchers. Provisional estimates for 2020 sales are even more pessimistic, which market analysts attribute to the fact the disposable income has not yet improved significantly, as well as to the aging population.
According to the figures presented on Thursday by Panayiotis Boretos, chief commercial officer and alternate managing director at IRI Hellas, the sales of fast-moving consumer goods (those bought and consumed faster) reached about 5.44 billion euros last year, up 1.7 percent from 5.35 billion in 2018. These commodities – packaged food, laundry detergents, domestic cleaning and personal hygiene products – constitute the biggest share of supermarket sales.
If one adds products sold in bulk, such as fruit, vegetables, meat and fresh fish, then the increase in the value of sales in 2019 came to 2.4 percent from 2018. However, according to Boretos, this is mainly due to the rise in the price of meat and not to the increase in sales volume. Even so, the yearly growth rate in sales was lower last year than in 2018, when it had come to 2.7 percent.
