Sales of almond milk, avocados and new flavours of water were up in the UK last year, according to retail data released by IRI.

The companys Product Growth Categories data for 2016 shows a clear trend towards alternative or healthy products, with almond milk topping the list, by percentage growth, with sales of £62 million – up 32% over the previous year.

With supermarket sales of £187 million, avocados came third in the list, showing 28% growth over the previous year, followed by fortified water (£55 million), up 25% and coconut water (£63 million), up 20% over 2015.

2016 also saw strong sales of peanut butter – an industry now worth £80 million to UK retailers – up 20%, and juice smoothies up 17.5% to £154 million.

Martin Wood, head of strategic insight – retail at IRI, notes, "2016 was the year of so called clean eating. IRIs figures suggest the trend may have influenced what people put in their shopping baskets, with some products showing exceptional growth in an FMCG market that has been relatively flat over the last 12 months. Usually we see a big uptick in sales of healthy products, like fruit and vegetables, at the start of each year triggered by New Year resolutions to be more healthy, but this was clearly more sustained growth over most of the year."