Best-One enjoys a rise in shopping trips in the third quarter of 2021

Bestway said that its symbol brand increased its share of the total number of shopping trips, or shopping occasions, by 1.2 percentage points in the 12 weeks to 17 October.

This compared well with Tesco Express and Spar, which decreased their share of occasions by 1.4 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points respectively.

Mike Hollis, Bestway’s director of retail, said that Best-One’s growth might have been fuelled by an increase in “newsagent missions” as older shoppers became more confident about going out due to the booster vaccine.

Hollis said that the Lumina figures were good news for Best-One. He added: “We can see that frequency of shopping increased by 4%, indicative of smaller shops more often, as summer holidays and good weather meant increased spending for more people.

“And top up – both planned and distress – saw share of mission increases of one percentage point and two percentage points respectively, aligning with the increase in basket size.

“The coming 12 weeks will also give us further fascinating insights into how consumer behaviours may be shifting and with the festive season about to shift up a gear – it will be highly competitive period as the sector competes for share of market”.