Boxed chocolates leap-frogged into pole position as the most heavily promoted category in March, according to the latest just-food Promo Tracker. 

Over 56.9% of boxed chocolates on sale at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Ocado were on promotion last month, data compiled by mysupermarket-insights.co.uk showed. 

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There was a spike in promotional activity in the category during the period, coinciding with increased chocolate sales due to Mothering Sunday, which fell on 18 March. In the prior month, boxed chocolate was only the ninth most heavily promoted category, with 41.01% of sales made on promotion. 

While there was an upsurge in the number of promotional offers on boxed chocolates, the size of the discounts remained relatively flat month-on-month. Average savings per promotion totalled GBP1.52 (US$2.40) in March, compared to average savings of GBP1.53 in April. 

Sainsbury’s was the most promotional retailer in March, with 41.35% of total SKUs sold on promotion during the period. This represents a month-on-month increase of 8.23 percentage points from February, when 33.12% of SKUs sold were on promotion.   

Brands

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By GlobalData
Brand PcntOfPromos AvgSavingPerPromo
Reflets de France 100 0.35
Daylesford 98.5 1.37
Actimel 97.3 0.7
Pringles 90.9 1.03
Benecol 90 0.53
Activia 88.5 0.29
Muller 82.9 0.49
Doritos 80.4 0.48
Tilda 74.5 0.71
Seeds of Change 74.3 0.52
Batchelors 73.8 0.21
Quaker 73.6 0.31
Rachel’s 69.6 0.22
Green & Black’s 69.3 1.08
Tyrrells 64.7 0.67
Bassett’s 64.1 1.27
Ainsley Harriott 63.5 0.37
Tesco Italian 62.9 0.42
KP 59.9 0.59
Cow & Gate 59.4 0.24

Category

Category PcntOfPromos AvgSavingPerPromo
Boxed Chocolates 56.9 1.52
Yogurts 56.09 0.34
Yogurt & Milk Drinks 54.9 0.53
Frozen Vegetarian 54.05 0.49
Crisps 53.8 0.6
Chilled Desserts 53.57 0.34
Frozen Pizza & Breads 52.52 0.56
Baby Food & Snacks 51.88 0.25
Jam & Spreads 48.22 0.8
Snack Meals 44.09 0.21
Pasta Sauce 43.69 0.5
Cooked, Prepared Meat & Poultry 43.39 0.63
Frozen Ready Meals 41.41 0.43
Fresh Soup 41.09 0.53
Tinned Pasta 40.94 0.19
Chocolate Biscuits 38.64 0.56
Sausages & Burgers 37.97 0.53
Packet Soup 37.11 0.26
Porridge & Muesli 36.52 0.45
Stock, Sauce Mix & Gravy 34.97 0.36

Supermarkets

Supermarket Total number of SKUs Number of Promos % of all SKUs on promo Average saving per promo
Tesco 36067 13882 38.49 £0.96
Asda 28797 7170 24.9 £0.64
Sainsbury’s 24925 10307 41.35 £1.14
Ocado 20086 5777 28.76 £1.09
Waitrose 22823 5829 25.54 £1.1

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