Butter spreads positivity for the dairy market

After successive periods of falling growth the dairy market saw a slight improvement in the latest 12 weeks with growth at 1.1% (up from 1%). The growth rate in the overall grocery market saw a similar marginal growth (from 1.3% to 1.4%), putting its performance slightly ahead of the dairy market. Volume growth in dairy sees a more impressive uplift to 1.5%, up from 1.1%

There’s mixed results across dairy sectors, and while almost all continue to see growth, cream, cheese, yoghurt and yoghurt drinks have all seen that growth fall back on last period. Butter and margarine have played a key role in the turnaround for the dairy market, with an additional £6.9m and £2.8m spend in these sectors during the period.

Of the retailers, Tesco sees the strongest improvement in contribution, with an additional £5.2 million. Morrisons and The Co-Op also seeing uplift exceeding £1 million. Butter was again the key to growth for Tesco, boosting performance by £4.3m. This strong performance from butter was seen across all retailers, with the exception of Sainsbury’s, which saw a marginal downturn.

Retired shoppers are the group with the biggest uplift in spend change (up £5.3 million) with less strong contributions from shoppers in the Empty Nesters, Pre-Families and Older families groups. Likewise more affluent ABC1 shoppers are spending strongly while C2DE see a downturn. Within the butter category, performance is strong across socioeconomic groups with only Pre-Families seeing a minor downturn.

In terms of promotions, Y for £X deals are contributing to the market’s improved performance while the opposite is true for TPR promotions. Full price sales see improved growth when it comes to the dairy market as a whole, and all price mechanisms contribute to the improved performance of butter.