While early on in the pandemic many shoppers started out indulging in traditional and “comfort food” choices, January kicked off with New Year’s resolutions for 64% of shoppers. More than one third, 35%, aim to eat healthier, in general; 35% want to get more exercise; and 29% plan to save more money, according to the IRI Consumer Network survey conducted in January 2021. For meat, this means the consumer’s eye is on nutrition as well as price and promotion.

January meat department sales increased 15.5%, excluding online-only and delivery e-commerce sales, but does include pick-up-in-store fulfillment like click-and-collect and personal shopper delivery. IRI shopper research finds that 16% of shoppers are ordering their groceries online more, with all but 6% of opting for click-and-collect fulfillment versus direct-to-home delivery or pureplay online with no physical store. All in all, meat department multi-outlet sales for the four weeks ending January 24th gained an additional $823 million versus the comparable period in 2020, wrote Anne-Marie Roerink, president of 210 Analytics, in her most recent retail meat sales report.

Fresh meat made up the majority share of sales, at $4.1B and had slightly higher gains (+15.6%) than processed meats (+15.3%) in January 2021. However, volume gains were slightly higher for processed meats, at +9.5%. That resulted in the gap between volume and dollars falling below the six percent mark for processed meats, whereas fresh remained at 6.4 percentage points.

Price per Volume

Most proteins saw significant increases in the price per volume throughout 2020. In January 2021, the price per volume for beef, chicken and lamb remained at least +5.0% over year ago levels, whereas the price of pork and turkey was more in line with January 2020. Prices across the meat department in January 2021 were up 5.7% over year ago.  Note: Pork does not include Smoked Ham, which is reported in Processed Meats.

Average price per volume and change
versus the same period year ago
2019 Q1 20 Q2 20 Q3 20 Q4 20 Jan 21
Meat department $3.53 $3.72 $3.99 $3.96 $3.51 $3.85 +5.7%
Total fresh meat $3.35 $3.55 $3.92 $3.78 $3.30 $3.67 +5.8%
Total processed meat $3.96 $4.13 $4.15 $4.39 $4.01 $4.27 +5.3%
  Fresh beef $4.88 $4.97 $5.82 $5.42 $5.21 $5.19 +5.3%
  Fresh chicken $2.33 $2.40 $2.45 $2.46 $2.43 $2.51 +5.0%
  Fresh pork $2.66 $2.78 $3.02 $2.81 $2.72 $2.77 +2.3%
  Fresh turkey $2.03 $3.14 $3.25 $3.43 $1.51 $3.05 +1.1%
  Fresh lamb $7.79 $7.91 $8.24 $8.51 $8.31 $8.22 +9.3%

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO, price per volume and % gain versus YA

Fresh Meat Gains by Protein

In January 2021, beef accounted for 64% of all additional dollars over this month in 2020, reflecting a share gain of 19.0% over year ago. Chicken was the second-largest contributor to sales gains, at +$90 million versus year ago. Lamb had the highest percentage dollar gains, at +30.4%, but off a much smaller base.

January 2021 Dollar sales Dollar gains Absolute dollar gains Volume gains
Meat department $6.1B +15.5% $823M +9.3%
Total fresh meat $4.1B +15.6% $559M +9.2%
  Fresh beef $2.2B +19.0% $359M +13.1%
  Fresh chicken $1.1B +9.1% $90M +3.9%
  Fresh pork $549.6M +16.2% $77M +13.6%
  Fresh turkey $164.6M +8.9% $14M +7.7%
  Fresh lamb $39.2M +30.4% $9M +19.3%

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, MULO, % growth versus year ago

A full copy of the 210 Analytics and IRI report can be accessed here.