High street retailers are reporting a “coronation effect” sales boost as shoppers make a last-minute dash to the shops to stock up on party fare including bunting, champagne and cakes for this weekend’s celebrations.
With potentially more than £200m of extra sales riding on the festivities surrounding the coronation of King Charles, retailers’ shelves are being cleared of fizz, quiche, scones as well as buffet favourites such as pork pies and scotch eggs.
Inspired by the official “coronation quiche”, Lidl said its budget-friendly Deluxe version of the dish – at £2.79 each – was proving popular with party planners, with sales up a third in the past month. Mini scotch eggs and Melton Mowbray pork pies were also flying out the door, with sales up 15% and 10% respectively.
With household budgets under pressure, Lidl said shoppers were also heading there to buy affordable fizzy wine, with sales of its £14 Carpentier champagne brut up by more than 60%. It said it had also sold enough bunting to line the coronation procession route 75 times over.
Rival Aldi ihas also reported a sales fillip. It was doing a roaring trade in street party fare, selling 30 quiches and 170 scones a minute, while bottles of Austins – its “value alternative” to Pimm’s – were also in huge demand, it said.
Britons are together expected to spend about £200m on the celebrations. This figure includes £60m on formal and informal street parties as well as £130m on food and drink, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).
The CRR thinks the overall extra spending linked to the event could top £1.4bn if the £250m spent on souvenirs and memorabilia, plus going out, as well as other spending by tourists is totted up.
Despite the gloomy weather forecast, Waitrose said its customers were also getting in the mood, with searches for coronation recipes on its website up by more than 300% in the last week. Scones, coronation chicken and a special “pavlova tower” were among the most popular dishes, it said.
With many customers clearly planning to have a go at making the official coronation quiche recipe, Waitrose said its sales of frozen garden peas were up nearly 40% on a year ago. The retailer said there had been a run on mascarpone, which is one of the ingredients in its grand-looking Battenberg trifle with meringue crown.
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Joshua Bamfield, the CRR’s director, said that as the coronation neared, some of its spending estimates could turn out to be conservative. There are now nearly 4,300 public events and street parties logged on the official coronation website, with enthusiasm levels highest in Hampshire and Kent.
Bamfield suggested the final tally, including unofficial events, would be between 15,000 and 20,000. “Retailers are saying ‘it is late in the day’ but there is still a lot of interest,” he said.
