THE success of discount food retailers is grabbing plenty of headlines, as are the woes of big supermarket groups.

You could be forgiven for thinking, amid all the excitement, that this spectacular rise of the discounters is something new. But it is not.

Remember Shoprite? How about Kwik Save? Or go back a bit further and there was Shoppers Paradise.

Isle of Man-based Shoprite built a big presence in Scotland but came unstuck in the mid-1990s. Its UK food retailing operations were bought by Kwik Save, which had its own troubles before becoming part of Somerfield in 1998.

In the context of the current clamour about the discounters, a trawl through The Herald's archives, for a reminder of what was written around the time of the early-1990s recession, certainly produces a sense of deja vu.

In an article published on December 18, 1992, which went on to focus on the rise of Shoprite, Nicola Reeves wrote: "The recession has led to a growing discount retail sector. This has become a major feature of food retailing, not least because of the arrival of foreign companies such as Aldi and Netto."

Does this trend sound familiar?

There is no doubt that Shoprite thrived during, and in the immediate wake of, the early-1990s recession.

And it struggled badly thereafter.

So it is important not to underestimate the extent to which life is made easier for discounters by difficult economic times. The big unknown is how the discounters will fare this time around, if and when better economic conditions emerge.

There is no doubt that the Great Recession of 2008/09, and the largely miserable economic times in the UK since, have created a climate in which discounters have been able to thrive.

At the crux of this misery for so many households has been the relentless fall in real pay, which shows little, if any, sign of abating. Freezes or cuts in pay were commonplace during the recession, and have remained a feature of the labour market. Where there have been rises in pay, these have very often been well adrift of inflation.

With corporations ever more powerful in pay negotiations, and unions increasingly struggling to secure a decent deal for their members, there is precious little prospect of any dramatic change in the earnings climate. In some sectors, such as oil and gas, companies have had to pay up for talent. However, in a labour market which is still far from strong, many workers are fairly powerless on pay.

Meanwhile, savage cuts in welfare benefits by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government have sucked demand out of the economy.

As households have struggled to balance their finances, the food bill has been an obvious target for savings.

Big supermarkets have felt the heat, as German discounters Aldi and Lidl have thrived. Poundland, which sells some food, has also cashed in.

Tesco has not had its troubles to seek, with a tumbling market share.

And, on September 22, Tesco said that, on the basis of preliminary investigations into its UK food business, its board believed the guidance issued on August 29 for group profits for the six months to August 23 had been overstated by an estimated £250 million.

Wm Morrison Supermarkets has struggled with falling sales. It made clear its awareness of the rise of the discounters yesterday with the launch of a scheme which provides a price-match guarantee against Aldi and Lidl as well as Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda.

Aldi this week revealed that it had achieved a 65 per cent hike in pre-tax profits to £261m in 2013.

Sainsbury had, until recently, been riding out the storm impressively. But it announced on Wednesday that its grocery sales in the last quarter were down 2.8 per cent on a year earlier on a like-for-like basis. New chief executive Mike Coupe cited the toughest trading conditions in 30 years, with many people abandoning the big shops of days gone by in favour of more frequent trips featuring a lower spend.

While the discounters are being aided by tough economic conditions, as was the case about a quarter-century ago, there may well be some other factors at play this time.

It is always dangerous to ignore the lessons of history. However, there seems to be something different about the approach of the food discounters in this particular economic cycle.

As usual, the discounters have marketed themselves cleverly, and maximised the impression of price differentials. For instance, Aldi offers two litres of milk for 75p. In Sainsbury, a similar-looking jug of milk costs £1, but it is 2.27 litres.

But Aldi and Lidl have appeared at pains in recent times to add touches of luxury to their offerings, and seem to have focused more sharply on fruit and vegetables and freshly-baked produce. And they seem to have succeeded in appealing to a diverse band of customers, across income brackets.

If we ever get to a stage where most people feel they have a bit of extra money in their pockets again, a day which seems a long, long way off, the discounters may face a challenge.

But we should not ignore the excruciatingly protracted nature of these tough times, which continue for most households, amid the cost-of-living crisis, even if the economic growth figures look a bit better for now.

Old habits die hard. But, over such a long period of miserable austerity, they may well have changed for good.