LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - British consumers reined intheir spending in February ahead of Brexit as shoppers focusedon buying food, including for stock-piling, rather thannon-essential items, data released on Tuesday showed.
Strong consumer spending has taken the edge off a slowdownin the world's fifth-biggest economy for much of the periodsince the 2016 Brexit referendum although consumer confidencelevels are now close to five-year lows as the scheduled Brexitdate of March 29 approaches.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said total sales edgedup by an annual 0.5 percent, a sharp slowdown from growth of 2.2percent in January.
Separately, Barclaycard said its broader measure of consumerspending rose by 1.2 percent, the weakest increase since thecompany began recording spending on its cards in 2015.
It said spending in pubs and restaurants, which had beengrowing strongly, slowed in February. Several retailers havealso issued profit warnings, with Debenhams, once thecountry's biggest department store, issuing its latest downgradeon Tuesday.
Employee-owned John Lewis is the only majorBritish retailer to update on weekly sales, providing the mostup to date snapshot of its customer behaviour. Sales at itsdepartment stores fell 3.9 percent in the four weeks to Feb. 23.
"Uncertainty surrounding the UK's imminent exit from theEuropean Union has hit consumer spending," BRC Chief ExecutiveHelen Dickinson said.
"While real incomes have started to rise over the past year,shoppers have been reluctant to spend this February, holdingback growth."
On a like-for-like basis, excluding changes in the amount ofstore space from one year to the next, sales were down 0.1percent, the BRC said.
Both surveys showed consumers scaling back on non-essentialspending.
Barclaycard said 18 percent of respondents in a poll itconducted had begun stockpiling food and essential householdsupplies in case of shortages after Brexit.
Supermarkets themselves are also stockpiling goods that canbe held for longer, using warehouse space and containers intheir carparks to hold tins, dried goods such as pasta, bottledwater and olive oil.
"Uncertainty over Brexit appears to be driving a shift inbehaviour, with many Brits worrying about price rises andcutting back on non-essential spend, and some even stockpilingeveryday items," Esme Harwood, director at Barclaycard, said.
Market research group Kantar also said one in 10 shoppershad claimed to have started stockpiling essential foods,although it said this was not immediately evident in the data.
Barclaycard's spending figures were based on credit anddebit card spending between Jan. 20 and Feb. 16. The BRC datacover Jan. 27 to Feb. 23.
On Feb. 26, Prime Minister Theresa May opened the way for apossible delay to Brexit.
(Reporting by William Schomberg, Kate Holton and James Davey;editing by Louise Heavens)
