UK shoppers spent an extra £1.9bn stockpiling groceries in the run-up to the coronavirus lockdown, according to figures for the industry. The data from Nielsen follows a brutal week for the wider retail sector that has seen high street operations all but shut down, with hundreds of thousands of staff given a leave of absence pending wage support from the government. Separate data from Kantar Worldpanel showed the month of March was the biggest on record for UK grocery sales, with households spending an average of almost £63 extra over the four weeks to 22 March.