The UK convenience market is seeing challenging condition, driven by drop in both value sales and volume sales falling though average spend per unit increased to £2.75, states a recent report.
According to insights from TWC SmartView Convenience, growth drivers in the quarter included spirits and RTDs, soft drinks, and frozen, while significant declines were seen in tobacco, tobacco alternatives, crisps and snacks, beer/lager/cider, non-edible grocery, edible grocery, and confectionery (though the latter declined more slowly than total convenience).
Branded products continued to outperform own label, growing +1% vs -9% respectively.
Meanwhile, the introduction of the vape ban hit volumes hard, with a -16 per cent drop in week one, impacting categories such as crisps, snacks, confectionery, and soft drinks.
Among suppliers, the top five growth brands were Monster, Red Bull, Buzzballs, Lucozade Sport, and Magnum.
SmartView Convenience by TWC tracks retail epos data from a representative, handpicked sample of 5,000 stores nationwide.
This comes a day after another industry report released on the performance of the convenience sector.
Lumina Intelligence’s Convenience Tracking Programm, released on Tuesday (Sept 9), showed a different picture. It states that UK convenience market experienced strong momentum in the second quarter of 2025, with soaring summer temperatures, record levels of delivery for managed outlets and the growing importance of price-marked packs all shaping shopper behaviour.
Planned top-ups remained a key driver of this growth, particularly among affluent young families who sought reliable access to products without compromising on convenience.
Another defining feature of the quarter was the continued rise of price-marked packs, which gained further traction across both forecourts and managed outlets.
Soft drinks in particular benefitted from shoppers’ preference for clear value cues, states the report.