Sales Review: Mushrooms

The end of year holiday season is peak time for mushroom sales. By Jordyn Bailey Mushrooms made up 4.1% of all vegetable sales for the 52 weeks ended February 22. Mushroom dollar sales increased 4% and volume increased 3.1%, driven by brown mushroom performance. During the tracked period, 40.5% of all households purchased mushrooms. Households purchasing mushrooms purchased the product on 4.2 trips per year and maintained purchase frequency from the previous year. Shoppers spent $3.02 per trip on mushrooms, down slightly from the previous year. Nationally, mushroom sales peaked during the November and December holidays. The week of Thanksgiving (the week ended November 30) posted the largest sales for mushrooms with an average of $1,081 per store. White mushrooms were the main sales driver during this week, accounting for 66.1% of all mushroom volume. The second largest peak week of sales occurred during the week of Christmas (the week ended December 28) with an average of $1,074 per store. Mushrooms also had high sales during the months of January and February. The East topped sales performance for mushrooms among the U.S. regions with an average of $1,120 per store per week. East region sales outperformed the national average of $830 per store per week. The South region posted the lowest weekly mushroom sales at $654 per store and was the lowest contributor at 1.6%. The largest contributor to the category was white mushrooms, which accounted for 62.6% of all sales. However, dollars and volume declined from the previous year as consumers started turning to brown mushrooms. Brown mushrooms made up a smaller share of the category at 30.3%, but increased weekly dollars and volume sales 6.0% and 5.8% per store respectively. Other mushrooms made up just 3% of the category, but gained traction during the latest 52 weeks. Both dollar and volume sales of other mushrooms increased triple digits, likely due to the 89.9% increase in the number of unique items selling on store shelves. Other mushrooms include items such as whole mushrooms, stuffed mushrooms and exotic mushrooms.