Christmas cake, pudding and confectionery sales were up 8.3% on 2014 as UK consumers spent £219m in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. 

Across the fortnight ending 26 December, sales of cakes and puddings were up 6.3% with sales of £46.9m and confectionery was up 8.8% with sales of £172.2m - these were the biggest sales surges of all the food categories from the beginning to the end of the month.

The ’Bake-Off effect’

Martin Wood, IRI’s head of strategic insight, retail solutions and innovation said: “The increase in sales of Christmas cakes, puddings and confectionery could be due to the ‘Bake-Off effect’ giving people a taste for sweet things once again. They want to feature high-quality cakes and desserts as centrepieces of their Christmas meal or party spread, but don’t have time to create these themselves.

“There was an extra peak shopping day in Christmas week 2015 compared with last year, which helped push up the final week’s sales figures, but the level of growth does provide some good news for supermarkets.”