September brought cooler temperatures around the country and kids returned to school. “With it, the share of meals prepared at home increased to 78.8 percent,” said Jonna Parker, team lead fresh for Circana, citing the September edition of the Circana primary shopper survey.
At-home meal preparation patterns themselves continue to be affected by the sustained pressure on income. The Circana survey found that 24 percent of consumers do more scratch-cooking and 42 percent do more with leftovers.
Home-centric life provides many occasion-based opportunities for departments around the store. For example, 45 percent of Americans expect to tune into one or more NFL games from their homes this season. “These are big opportunities for snacking fruit and vegetables,” said Joe Watson, IFPA’s VP of Retail, Foodservice and Wholesale.
As consumers still shift their dollars across items, brands, sizes, stores and restaurants, Circana, 210 Analytics and the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) team up to document the impact on sales patterns in fresh produce.
The price per unit across all foods and beverages in the Circana-measured multi-outlet stores, including supermarkets, club, mass, supercenters, drug and military, increased by 3.1 percent in September 2023 (the four weeks ending 10/1/2023) versus September 2022.
Fresh produce prices continued to increase in September versus their year-ago levels, but less so than total food and beverages. On a per-pound basis, fruit prices increased by 1.3 percent year-on-year whereas vegetable prices were nearly flat.
The September 2023 weeks generated $58.2 billion in food and beverage sales, up 0.2 percent over September 2022, though unit sales trailed behind. Perishables, including produce, seafood, meat, bakery and deli, had a below-average dollar growth performance (-0.6 percent) but this was prompted by the different levels of inflation as illustrated by the better-than-average unit performance (-1.3 percent versus -3.9 percent for center-store grocery).
September 2023 fresh produce sales reached $5.7 billion. The first week of September had a holiday boost at $1.5 billion versus $1.4 billion for the remaining three weeks.
The investment in price on the fruit side paid off in large volume gains of 1.6 percent over September 2022.
“Berries, grapes and apples were the dollar leaders in September,” said Watson. “The four September weeks generated $615 million in berry sales alone with substantial dollar and pound gains.”
Other fruits with increased volume sales were melons, avocados, mandarins, mixed fruit and pineapples.
“The dollar and pound performance among the top 10 vegetable sellers was all over the board,” Parker said. “Tomatoes remain a remarkable story with strong volume sales pushing dollars 3.1 percent over year-ago levels.”
Other vegetables with year-over-year pound increases were onions, peppers, carrots and cucumbers.
The next report, covering October, will be released mid-November.
Click here to see the full report.
For more information:
Anne-Marie Roerink
210 Analytics LLC
Tel: +1 (210) 651-2719
[email protected]
www.210analytics.com