Tag: 210 Analytics

Father’s Day excepted, fruit had its strongest week since mid June, at +6.5% over last year.

Anne-Marie Roerink and I are back to talk about consumer trends amid the COVID-19 crisis. This week we have the latest sales numbers, and how July 4 was surprisingly strong, despite the single-digit growth. 

While frozen and canned fruits and vegetables still show higher year-over-year dollar gains, fresh produce is now back up to a pre-pandemic share of dollars.

The week ending June 28 was the week in between Father’s Day and the Fourth of July, which means everyday demand alone was driving the sales numbers.

The week ending June 21st was Father’s Day weekend and it resulted in a significant boost for fresh produce, both fruit and vegetables. At the same time, the demand for center-store items, including frozen and canned fruit and vegetables, also remained strong.

Restaurant transactions and spending gained back ground during the second week of June, but grocery sales, and produce along with it, remained well above the 2019 base line.

The first week of June marks three full months of coronavirus-related shopping patterns. While restaurant competition for the food dollar is gearing up, grocery sales remained highly elevated.

This increase in produce demand from the foodservice side of the business came on top of continued elevated levels of at-home meal occasions. This results in an ever-changing demand landscape for grocery retailing as a whole, and produce along with it.

Memorial Day signals the traditional start of the summer grilling season, with meat and produce promotions typically dominating the front page of grocery circulars around the country. This year, however, the tight meat supply created a starring role for fresh produce in many of the weekly ads.

Two months after panic purchases drove the biggest sales weeks in the history of modern grocery retailing, coronavirus-related shopping patterns for produce appear to be settling into a steady elevated trend line.