Frozen Meat Sales Reach New Highs

While it's far from a mystery why so many consumers have returned to meat for home consumption, there are myriad success stories within the larger category. “In addition to the strength in fresh, frozen meat sales reached new highs with consumers seamlessly shifting from fresh to frozen when supply was tight,” reports Anne-Marie Roerink, principal with 210 Analytics. “Frozen meat provides retailers with a great, no shrink opportunity to expand assortment.” And it’s not just beef that’s benefiting, she adds. Sales of chicken, pork, bison, lamb, turkey and plant-based meat alternatives are all up.

And it seems e-commerce sales are heating up once again. “The virus is in firm control of where and how people spend their food dollars,” says Roerink. “As cases are ticking up in October and November, we see food dollars move back to retail, and e-commerce is gearing back up as well. For many retailers, e-commerce had dropped to about 50% of peak March and April levels in more recent months, but all are seeing the volume pick back up.”

Chicken and Turkey

Total U.S. multioutlet (MULO) | YA is the year ago for the same weeks ending 2019; 2 YA is the same weeks ending 2018; 3 YA is the same weeks ending 2017 | IRI Unify in the Integrated Fresh syndicated hierarchy and data model was used for this report

Latest 52 Weeks Ending Oct. 4, 2020 (All numbers represent precent changes of dollar sales)

Note: Ingredient cuts are products that provide the additional step of cutting or trimming to provide value to the consumer (cubes, strips, kebabs, etc.)

Source: IRI Syndicated Integrated Fresh database, which combines random- and fixed-weight brands/product types known to be sold in this department at the majority of retailers

Measures: Dollar sales refers to the total cumulative dollar sales sold for that product during the time period (not included, but used as reference) | Dollar sales change refers to the percent difference between the current and prior period for total dollar sales | Dollar share to dept. refers to the total dollar sales of that product divided by the total dollar sales of the department to which it belongs | Dollar share to category refers to the total dollar sales of that subcategory divided by the total dollar sales of the parent category

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