BRITS spent almost half a billion pounds more than usual on booze, soft drinks and ice cream over the joint hottest summer on record, new figures have revealed.

Between the World Cup kick off in June through to the August bank holiday and beyond, shoppers spent £228 million more on alcohol, £178 million more on soft drinks and £74 million more on ice cream.

Overall, the market grew by 3.8 per cent, consumer data company Kantar Worldpanel said.

The warm weather was particularly kind to convenience stores, which benefited from shoppers wanting to buy locally for drinks and barbecue supplies, collectively seeing sales growth of 7.6 per cent compared with last year.

Co-op increased sales by 8.5 per cent, its fastest rate since 2011, while Tesco Express's performance contributed to total sales for Tesco rising 1.9 per cent.

The figures come as grocery inflation reached 2 per cent, adding £85 to each household's grocery spending annually, Kantar said.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: "Retailers are looking to offer consistently lower prices on everyday items rather than one-off deals and they have all reduced promotions as a result.

"That being said, consumers may not feel like they have more money in their pockets - grocery inflation has now reached 2.0 per cent, adding £1.64 to each household's weekly shopping bill. At the current rate, these price increases add up to an extra £85 per home annually."

Aldi was the UK's fastest growing supermarket in the latest period with sales up 13.9 per cent, while Lidl also outpaced the market with an 8.3 per cent sales increase.

Asda's recovery continued as it saw sales increase by 3.1 per cent and an extra 211,000 shoppers through the doors over the past 12 weeks.

Figures from rival analysts Nielsen show sales volumes returned to normal over the past month after growth of 1.4 per cent over the last 12 weeks.

Mike Watkins, Nielsen's UK head of retailer insight, said: "The exceptional summer has given the industry some much needed momentum and with a recent small uptick in inflation, the improved growth we've seen in the first half of the year is likely to continue for the second half, even if the last few weeks have seen a pause for breath."