Meat department sales were on a roll in October, with fresh meat sales driving eight percent gains to lead the department to an overall 5.4 percent increase over October 2023, according to the latest Performance Report from Circana, 210 Analytics, and Hillphoenix. The five October weeks generated $10 billion, with $7.1 billion for fresh meat. While inflation played a role, pound sales increased by 3.4 percent, also driven by strong gains in fresh meat.
All October weeks experienced dollar growth in comparison to year-ago levels, with a big bump for the week ending October 6th. During this week, dollar sales increased 10 percent over the same week in 2023, and volume rose 9.7 percent.
Volume sales stayed ahead of last year during the October weeks but fell slightly behind in the final week ending November 3rd, at -2.4 percent.
With October delivering another strong performance, the year-to-date meat department sales reached $87 billion, an increase of 4.7 percent. Year-to-date pound sales reached 18.6 billion, up 2.4 percent over the same period last year.
Fresh Meat Sales by Protein
Most proteins grew year-over-year dollar sales in October, led by beef and lamb. While inflation played a role, beef also grew pound sales by 7.5 percent in October, well ahead of the gains in chicken and pork. Lamb, at +11.5 percent, had the highest growth in October in comparison to October 2023. In the full-year view, lamb also had the highest year-on-year pound increases, at +14.4 percent, followed by exotic (mostly bison) and beef.
| October 2024 | Latest 52 weeks | |||||||||
| Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | |||
| Total fresh meat | $7.1B | +8.0% | +4.9% | Total fresh meat | $72.2B | +6.4% | +2.9% | |||
| Fresh beef | $3.9B | +11.2% | +7.5% | Fresh beef | $39.5B | +9.2% | +3.5% | |||
| Fresh chicken | $1.9B | +5.5% | +3.6% | Fresh chicken | $19.3B | +3.3% | +3.1% | |||
| Fresh pork | $809M | +4.8% | +6.1% | Fresh pork | $8.4B | +3.4% | +0.7% | |||
| Fresh turkey | $290M | -4.1% | -4.1% | Fresh turkey | $3.3B | +4.1% | +3.7% | |||
| Fresh lamb | $81M | +8.4% | +11.5% | Fresh lamb | $889M | +4.4% | +14.4% | |||
| Fresh exotic | $20M | -9.0% | -14.8% | Fresh exotic | $224M | +10.3% | +6.6% | |||
| Veal | $5M | -2.0% | -6.7% | Veal | $44M | -7.7% | -8.7% | |||
Processed Meat
While September brought improved pound sales for processed meat with a strong Labor Day performance, pounds declined year-over-year in October, albeit by a mere 0.6 percent. Packaged lunchmeat pound sales were down 2.3 percent year-over-over, and smoked ham sales are off to a slower start of the holiday season. As holiday purchase patterns continue to change, moving back closer to the holiday week, this is likely to self-correct in November. See the “What’s Next?” section for the 2023 Thanksgiving trends. In the full-year view, processed meat dollar and volume sales remained very close to last year’s levels.
| October 2024 | Latest 52 weeks | ||||||||
| Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | ||
| Processed meat | $2.9B | -0.5% | -0.6% | Processed meat | $31.5B | -0.3% | -0.1% | ||
| Packaged lunchmeat | $677M | -0.2% | -2.3% | Packaged lunchmeat | $7.0B | -2.5% | -0.6% | ||
| Bacon | $652M | -0.8% | +5.3% | Bacon | $6.8B | +3.1% | +1.1% | ||
| Dinner sausage | $521M | +3.3% | +3.6% | Dinner sausage | $5.6B | +2.6% | +3.2% | ||
| Frankfurters | $287M | +6.1% | +1.6% | Frankfurters | $3.2B | +1.2% | -1.5% | ||
| Breakfast sausage | $229M | +1.8% | +0.2% | Breakfast sausage | $2.4B | +2.2% | +1.6% | ||
| Smoked ham | $81M | +1.6% | -12.0% | Smoked ham | $1.9B | -2.9% | -0.6% | ||
| Processed chicken | $80M | +16.0% | +18.6% | Processed chicken | $745M | -2.2% | +1.2% | ||
