Crear un grup mediàtic

Grocery expenditure in terms of its contribution to the national economy has already been discussed in some detail. Therefore, the following analysis will concentrate more on the geographical patterns of household grocery expenditure in GB. First of all, Figure 5.8 displays the percentage of households in each LAD that spend £50 or more on groceries per week for 2011. Grocery expenditure relative to the number of households provides a useful indicator for potential expansion for retailers and has previously been used by Langston et al. (1997) and

Poole et al. (2002). In this case, the data are presented as an index so that that each value is compared to the national average for GB. The index was calculated as followed:

(5.1) where, represents the index value for each LAD i, is the percentage of households in each LAD i that spend £50 or more on groceries per week, and is the percentage of households that spend £50 or more on groceries per week for all of GB (average). The data are taken from Acxiom’s Aggregate Data (AD) which is discussed and evaluated in some detail in Chapter 4. It would have been preferable to use average expenditure for each LAD, but the data from the ROP are collected in categorical format which makes calculation of averages difficult.

Nonetheless, the data represent a unique opportunity to analyse local spatial patterns within the grocery market.

Figure 5.8. An index of the percentage of households that spend £50 or more on groceries per week by LAD in GB, 2011

Source: Acxiom Ltd (2011)

Figure 5.8 suggests that grocery expenditure has a definite spatial pattern across GB. The highest levels of weekly expenditure are concentrated in the South East (e.g. Sevenoaks, Tandridge and South Bucks) and parts of London (north and west) in particular. In comparison,

Wales, Scotland (Aberdeen) and large parts of northern England (Hull, Blackpool, Salford and Scarborough) have much lower levels of expenditure over £50 per week. This is consistent with the work of Poole (2002). However, given that Poole (2002) applied a national average to the proportion of socioeconomic groups in each postal area, it is believed that the data in Figure 5.8 provide a more accurate assessment of the geography of grocery expenditure in Britain. Even within selected GORs, the level of expenditure can be quite different between LADs. For example, within Yorkshire and the Humber, the more affluent county of North Yorkshire displays above average levels of expenditure compared to the less affluent districts of West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and the East Riding. This relationship between affluence and expenditure will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. In London, expenditure is much lower in the inner-city areas and city centre, compared to the north and outer London. Once again this raises the issue of affluence on expenditure. However, given the complex nature of the grocery market in London (Thompson et al., 2012), there are also convenience (smaller outlets), ethnicity (different purchase and consumption behaviours) and demographic (high population density) factors to consider (explored in Chapter 6).

It has already been established in Section 5.2.1 that rising inflation on grocery expenditure has rapidly increased the cost of food during the recession, however due to the categorical nature of the Acxiom AD data, it is difficult to take this into account. Therefore, any patterns identified in Table 5.3 must be made in the knowledge that inflation has not been considered. Table 5.3 shows the percentage of households by Vickers et al. (2003) LAD classification that spend £50 or more on groceries each week. Figures are shown from 2005 to 2011 so that considerations can be given both before and after the recession started. £50 was also chosen as the break point because research from the ONS stated average grocery expenditure on ‘food and non-alcoholic drink’ was around £53 in 2011 (see Chapter 6). Table 5.3 has also been coloured to show low values in blue and high values in red.

Table 5.3. The percentage of households that spend £50 or more on groceries per week by LAD area classification in GB, 2005 to 2011

Households (%) % points

Vickers LAD Class 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2007-2011 Industrial Legacy 48.16 50.03 52.92 57.74 62.06 65.39 67.48 14.56 Struggling Urban Manufacturing 45.50 47.12 49.33 54.24 58.91 62.56 64.84 15.51 Regional Centres 42.47 43.58 45.18 50.56 55.90 59.99 62.65 17.47

Sources: Vickers et al. (2003); Acxiom Ltd (2005 to 2011)

As expected, given the rising inflation on food since 2005 (Table 5.1), the percentage of households spending more than £50 per week has risen each year. Nevertheless, when examining the figures across the different classifications, it is apparent that the increases witnessed at the national level are not the same across the country. For example, up until 2007, the difference between the maximum and minimum values was actually increasing. When considering that the lower values are associated with the more deprived areas such as ‘regional centres’ and struggling urban manufacturing’, the polarisation supports comments that during times of economic prosperity the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (Dorling, 2012). On the back of the financial crisis in 2007, this polarisation (max - min) between the different classifications reduces and then again between 2008 and 2009. This convergence of the data between 2008 and 2009 covers the period of recession in GB, a time when households were trading down to low-cost food lines and reducing their overall expenditure. In 2010, when the

economy began to recover, the figures in Table 5.3 become polarised once more. Based on the data from Figure 5.7, we know this to be a time when premium food lines and shopping at high-end retailers were becoming increasingly popular. Finally, in 2011 we see a pattern similar to that which occurred between 2007 and 2009. This is not surprising considering the level of economic uncertainty in 2011 brought about by the on-going Euro crisis, the London riots and threat of a double-dip recession (see Chapter 2). As a double-dip recession did occur in 2012, it is likely that more recent data would show a continuation of this trend. Nevertheless, to date, Table 5.3 exemplifies the areas spending the most on groceries per week to be those households living in ‘Isles of Scilly’, ‘the commuter belt’, and ‘thriving outer London, all of which are in the top level category termed ‘prosperous Britain’. Remarkably, the Isles of Scilly has moved from one of the lowest ranked areas in 2005, to the highest in 2011 – although this is arguably the result of a small numbers problem from the ROP data.