Morrisons still has to wait a month to hear whether it has got the green light from the Competition Commission to bid for Safeway. But the indications are that, if given clearance, it will lower the price of its takeover offer on the back of the declining trading performance from Safeway.

The picture at Safeway is backed up by this month’s TradeTrak survey from ACNielsen, which shows its market share down 0.7% year-on-year. This compares to a rise of 0.1% year-on-year for Morrisons. The Bradford-based grocer is outperforming the industry, with its last trading update in May showing like-for-like sales up 8.4% for the first 14 weeks of the financial year.

Fellow Safeway suitors Tesco and Asda have seen the biggest year-on-year increases in the survey, at 0.9% and 0.4% respectively. Tesco has widened its lead over number two player Sainsbury when it comes to share of food purchases. TradeTrak measures all grocery purchases brought into the home and excludes non-food other than household, petcare and toiletries.

If non-food is taken into account Asda takes the number two spot in market share while Tesco increases its lead even further.

According to ACNielsen manager of retailer services Mike Watkins: “Tesco and Asda have benefited from the good summer weather. In July the sales of home, leisure and general merchandise non-food in the grocery multiples were 15% above last year.

These shopping occasions continue to drive the visits to the out-of-town food retailers.”

Sainsbury continues to see a drop in year-on-year market share.

The ACNielsen data shows it to be down 0.8%, which indicates it is losing even more market share than beleaguered Safeway.

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