Meat department sales continued to fire on all cylinders, with fresh meat sales driving 6.8 percent gains to lead the department to an overall five percent increase over November 2023, according to the latest Performance Report from Circana, 210 Analytics, and Hillphoenix. The four November weeks generated $8.6 billion, with $6 billion for fresh meat. While inflation played a role, pound sales increased by 2.6 percent, also driven by strong gains in fresh meat.

In the 52-week view, dollars trended 4.5 percent ahead of last year. This increase reflects a combination of mild price increases and pound gains of 2.3 percent. Importantly, pound sales are also easily ahead of two years ago, at +2 percent.

The later Thanksgiving timing wreaked havoc on the week-by-week comparisons as purchases shifted by about one week. That meant sales during the first two weeks were down year-over-year, but they were more than offset by very strong sales the last two weeks. When aligning the two weeks leading up to the holiday in 2023 and 2024, it shows the continued shift back to purchasing close into the holiday for fresh foods.

With November delivering another strong performance, the year-to-date meat department sales reached $95.6 billion, which reflects an increase of 4.7 percent. Year-to-date pound sales reached 20.9 billion, up 2.4 percent over the same period last year.

Fresh Meat Sales by Protein

While beef prices are three percent higher than last year, pound sales increased 8.7 percent in November, well ahead of the gains in chicken and pork. Lamb, at +9 percent, had the highest year-over-year growth in November. In the full-year view, lamb also had the highest year-on-year pound increases, at +14.2 percent, followed by exotic (mostly bison) and beef. Thanksgiving favorite, turkey, came in flat in pounds, but decreased about eight percent in dollars due to deflationary conditions. Turkey sales did grow in dollars and pounds in the 52-week view.

  November 2024   Latest 52 weeks
Type $ sales $ vs. YA Lbs vs. YA Type $ sales $ vs. YA Lbs vs. YA
Total fresh meat $6.0B +6.8% +3.6% Total fresh meat $72.6B +6.6% +3.3%
Fresh beef $3.0B +12.6% +8.7% Fresh beef $39.8B +9.6% +4.1%
Fresh chicken $1.4B +6.4% +3.3% Fresh chicken $19.4B +3.7% +3.2%
Fresh turkey $803M -8.3% -0.5% Fresh pork $8.4B +3.7% +1.4%
Fresh pork $606M +4.8% +5.9% Fresh turkey $3.2B +0.6% +3.2%
Fresh lamb $72M +8.3% +9.0% Fresh lamb $894M +5.2% +14.2%
Fresh exotic $22M -8.2% -8.5% Fresh exotic $224M +8.5% +5.8%
Veal $3.4M -1.8% -2.6% Veal $44M -7.0% -8.1%

Source: Circana, Integrated Fresh, MULO+

The November report is available here.