The number of new grocery store openings across the UK doubled last year, data from Local Data Company shows.

According to latest figures, the total number of grocery stores in the UK grew by 1.4 per cent in 2020, double the figure of 0.7 per cent recorded the year before.

Local Data Company research shows that German discount stores Lidl and Aldi came out on top with the most store openings - 76 and 66 new sites respectively.

Iceland owned Food Warehouse and Heron Foods followed with 28 and eight new stores last year.

Data also revealed that almost every area of the UK had a net uplift in grocery store openings, with the East of England leading with 3.3 per cent growth. The South East and Scotland followed in second place with growth of 2.5 per cent.

The only regions that saw a decline were Greater London and Yorkshire and Humber, which saw drops of 0.1 and 0.4 per cent respectively.

Head of retail partnerships at Local Data Company, Lucy Stainton said: "Supermarkets and convenience retailing, for obvious reasons, proved much more resilient through the Covid-19 pandemic than other categories.

"It will be critical for supermarket retailers to find the right balance from a portfolio perspective to capture the key, somewhat opposing, trends - that of shopping hyper locally and a move back to the less frequent 'big shops', as shoppers seek to reduce the risk of Covid-19 by doing large shops less often."