Most retail categories continue to outperform their pre-pandemic normal as life remains more home-centric, according to the June Performance Report by Circana, 210 Analytics and Hillphoenix. Year-to-date, volume meat sales have been positive every month with the one exception of April when the shift in Easter timing overrode the general strength of everyday demand. In June, fresh meat pounds were flat versus last year and 0.5 percent versus two years ago. Mild inflation pushed dollars for both processed and fresh meat into the plus.
A look at sales trends over the past 52 weeks shows that:
- Value-added meat sales continue to trail conventional products across proteins. Whereas value-added fresh meat sales were up 2.3 percent, unprepared items increased dollar sales by 4.3 percent. Likewise, volume sales for value-added fresh meat was up 0.2 percent versus 1.5 percent for regular fresh meat and poultry.
- Organic is having a big year, with dollar sales up 9.8 percent and pounds up 8.3 percent.
- Grass-feed beef is also experiencing strong growth in dollars, units, and pounds.
Three out of the four June weeks experienced volume growth in comparison to year-ago levels. The final week ending June 30th pulled down the positive momentum to result in the 0.5 percent decrease for the entire month of June. Without a doubt, this is due to the timing of the Fourth of July holiday relative to the Sunday month ending in the Circana data. Sales will shift more into July, which will mean the Independence Day sales bump will show up more in next month’s report.
With June delivering another strong performance, the year-to-date meat department sales reached $50.7 billion, which reflects an increase of 3.6 percent. Year-to-date pound sales reached 11 billion, which is up 1.5 percent over the same period last year.
Fresh Meat Sales by Protein
Chicken, lamb, and exotic (bison, fowl and other specialty proteins) had very strong June pound gains. Beef experienced a virtually flat-pound performance. In the 52-week view, more and more proteins are starting to track ahead year-on-year in pound sales as well. This includes fresh beef that has experienced above-average inflation due to tight supply conditions. Fresh chicken increased sales 3.1 percent year-on-year and lamb (while a smaller seller) is pacing 11.4 percent ahead of year-ago levels.
| June 2024 | Latest 52 weeks ending 6/30/2024 | |||||||||
| Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | |||
| Total fresh meat | $5.6B | +3.7% | -0.1% | Total fresh meat | $70.0B | +4.1% | +1.3% | |||
| Fresh beef | $3.1B | +5.0% | -0.3% | Fresh beef | $38.0B | +7.2% | +0.8% | |||
| Fresh chicken | $1.5B | +2.6% | +2.2% | Fresh chicken | $18.9B | +1.3% | +3.1% | |||
| Fresh pork | $684M | +0.8% | -5.8% | Fresh pork | $8.2B | -0.2% | -1.8% | |||
| Fresh turkey | $173M | +4.1% | +6.1% | Fresh turkey | $3.3B | +2.5% | +1.2% | |||
| Fresh lamb | $62M | +5.2% | +14.4% | Fresh lamb | $860M | +0.4% | +11.4% | |||
| Fresh exotic | $16M | +19.8% | +16.6% | Fresh exotic | $221M | +12.7% | +6.4% | |||
| Veal | $3.0M | -6.8% | -7.9% | Veal | $44M | -11.2% | -9.8% | |||
Source: Circana, Integrated Fresh, MULO+
