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SN STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Frozen pizza sliced out an impressive niche for itself over the last year, experiencing the largest dollar sales increase of all frozen-food categories in supermarkets.New rising crusts, single-serve and premium selections helped the category experience a 12.3% dollar sales increase to $1.82 billion for the 52-week period ended July 20, 1997, according to SN's annual State of the Industry Report,

Frozen pizza sliced out an impressive niche for itself over the last year, experiencing the largest dollar sales increase of all frozen-food categories in supermarkets.

New rising crusts, single-serve and premium selections helped the category experience a 12.3% dollar sales increase to $1.82 billion for the 52-week period ended July 20, 1997, according to SN's annual State of the Industry Report, based on sales data from Information Resources Inc., Chicago. Pizza, the No. 3 in overall frozen-food sales, also saw a 3.4% unit sales increase to 778 million units.

Appetizers/snacks also performed well, jumping 9.1% in sales to $410 million. Overall, frozen food maintained a strong dollar sales growth. Dollar sales jumped 3.8% to $22.2 billion for the same 52-week period. Unit sales, however, dropped 2.1% to 11 billion.

The No. 1 category in dollar sales was dinners and entrees, with $4.5 billion in sales, up 3.7%; followed by ice cream at $3.79 billion, up 3.4%.

Significant dollar sales increases were also seen in the meat category, which jumped 11.8% to $568 million. Among the Top 10 categories, frozen meat increased the most in volume sales, with a 6.2% spike to 203 million units.

Breakfast foods were up 4.6% in unit volume, with 445 million units, and $834 million in dollar sales, a 7.1% increase. Seafood also gained, up 4.2% in unit volume to 224 million units. This was an 8% increase in dollar sales over last year, with sales reaching $809 million.

Three additional categories with high dollar sales -- frozen novelties, plain vegetables and frozen juices -- were down in dollar and unit sales.

Sales of frozen novelties reached $1.7 billion, a 0.2% increase over last year. Unit sales were 679 million, down 4.5%. Plain vegetable sales were $1.6 billion, falling 0.7% from last year, with unit sales of 1.3 billion, a 3.3% drop. And frozen juices, which continue to lose sales, slipped 5.6% this year to $1.3 billion. Unit sales for juices were 1.1 billion, down 10.2% over the previous year.

SN also compared dollar and unit sales in the eight major regions: California, the Great Lakes, Mid-South, Northeast, Plains, South Central, Southeast and West.

Frozen dinners/entrees showed the highest percentage dollar increase in the West, at 6.8% to $521 million. The Northeast, however, had the most sales, at $743 million, a 2.5% increase from the previous year.

Ice cream sales were highest in the Northeast, up 2.7% to $789 million. Sales were up in all regions, especially in the Great Lakes, climbing 5.7% to $563 million. Still, unit sales were down in all regions.

The Great Lakes region had the highest pizza sales, at $453 million. But the West saw the biggest percentage jump in dollar sales, climbing 18.8%. Both dollar sales and unit sales for pizza were up in all regions.

One interesting anomaly showed up in the regional data, in the frozen meat category: The Plains and Great Lakes regions experienced very large increases in both dollar and unit sales, compared with other areas of the country.

Meat sales were $98 million in the Great Lakes, a 30.2% dollar increase and a 17.3% unit increase. Sales in the Plains region were $39 million, a 31.7% increase in sales and a 21.4% volume spike. Meanwhile, the next highest spike was 17.4% in dollar sales ($44 million) and 12.2% in unit volume, in the South Central region. The Northeast actually had the highest sales, at $161 million, an increase of 1.9% over last year.

Private-label products did very well in the 52 weeks. Sales for private-label dinners/entrees were $55 million, up a whopping 61% from the previous year. Snack rolls/appetizers had sales of $11 million, up 54%, and breakfast foods had sales of $41 million, up 33%.

Private-label sales were up in all 10 categories except for juices.

Unit sales were also up in most categories, except for plain vegetables, ice cream and juices. Appetizers showed 6.6 million units sold, a 55% spike in volume over the previous year. Dinners/entrees had a 31% increase to 26.3 million units, and breakfast foods were up 28% to 29.5 million units.

Frozen-food sales in cities showed the most sales in major metropolitan areas. For example, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago had the highest sales in five categories, and New York was among the top three cities in sales for all categories. Baltimore/Washington and Philadelphia were two other metropolitan areas that had some of the highest sales.