Meat Gains Soften A Bit On Single-Digit Chicken, Turkey Gains

Five months into the pandemic, 57 percent of primary grocery shoppers were extremely concerned about COVID-19, according to Wave 16 of the IRI sentiment survey. The concern is driving continued elevated spending in food retail, while also hampering the recovery of foodservice.

The survey, conducted July 24 to 26, found that 30 percent of primary grocery shoppers are experiencing greater financial pressure than last year, and 25 percent are buying more value-size items to save money, up from 20 percent in late May. Additionally, 65 percent of consumers expect the economic crisis to last at least 12 more months – the highest percentage across all survey waves and near double that of the 37 percent who expected the economy to need a year to recover back in March.

Economic pressure tends to have big impacts on grocery shopping, including channel choice, the type of items and quantity bought, the importance of price and promotions and more. Meat sales also may have been impacted in preparation for hurricane/tropical storm Isaias that left several hundred thousand consumers without power along the East coast. Much like seen the last week of June, the final days of July/early August saw some softer gains than those seen in the prior two weeks.

The net result for the meat department was a double-digit gain in dollars, at +15.4 percent during the week ending Aug. 2 versus the comparable week year ago. While hard to believe, this marks the lowest year-over-year gain since the onset of the pandemic purchasing starting March 15, and yet, the 21st week of double-digit year-over-year gains. Dollars sales gains in hard-hit hurricane areas were just +8.4 percent for Connecticut, where 145,000 households remain without power as of Aug. 9, and New York sales grew 9.9 percent – both well below average.

Volume gained 6.0 percent as prices continued to become a little more favorable to consumers – which also erodes dollar gains somewhat. At an average of $3.87 during the week of Aug. 2, prices have dropped $0.29 per pound since the peak of $4.16 the third week of June.