Rfg. Salad Dressing 2010-08-12

Refrigerated salad dressings continued to buck recessionary trends during the past year, as many shoppers remained willing to spend a little extra money to create a premium healthy dining experience or to entertain guests at home or at events.

“Dips are very mainstream in a customer’s basket, especially surrounding events, such as tailgating, the big game, picnics and so on,” Maria Brous, spokeswoman for Publix Super Markets noted in an earlier interview with SN.

In fact, the last time SymphonyIRI reported a decline in sales of these premium dressings was 2007, when a 1.2% drop in volume led to $211.2 million in supermarket channel sales. In 2008, the category enjoyed a 7.8% increase in sales on stronger pricing, and in 2009, a 10.6% increase in volume boosted the category to almost $250 million in the supermarket channel.