Competition between supermarkets will intensify over the next five years, according to research by retail consultants Verdict Research. Daily Telegraph, The Times

According to Neil Saunders, consulting director at Verdict, supermarkets face an increasingly hard battle to win over customers.

“The supermarket sector is one of the most competitive segments of UK retailing. The major grocers are not big because they have some mystical power over the market; they are big because they excel at what they do,” he said.

“There is a common belief that because food retail has a number of very large, dominant players consumer choice is somehow stifled. In truth, it isn’t — the biggest battle that grocery retailers face is how to hold on to increasingly fickle customers who are able to transfer their custom elsewhere.”

According to Verdict the big four supermarkets — Tesco, Sainsbury, ASDA and Morrison — share eight out of 10 customers.