Will a giant pig-in-blanket or a meringue wreath be the hit this year? Inside the development kitchens at top supermarkets
If you thought cooking Christmas lunch for a dozen family members was stressful, imagine trying to create festive dishes for 12 million diners, all with their own peculiar tastes and budgets, and all willing to walk across the road if they don’t like what’s offered to them.
The British supermarket industry, competitive to a cut-throat degree at the best of times, treats the festive season as a key battleground. “Christmas is so important for supermarkets, financially and for their morale,” says Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, a market research firm. McKevitt’s team has been tracking how Aldi and Lidl, the Germany-based discounters, have been breathing down the necks of the big four – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – along with Marks & Spencer and Waitrose. All are under pressure, but Christmas presents a golden opportunity for the legacy supermarkets to fight back. Kantar calculates that households spent on average £129.47 at a supermarket in the week before Christmas last year, compared with £79.66 in a normal week.
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