Cheese struggles despite strong dairy performance

Growth in the dairy market eased by 1.8 percentage points in the latest 12 weeks.

Growth in the dairy market eased by 1.8 percentage points in the latest 12 weeks - down to 4.4%.

That said, dairy continues to grow faster than the wider fresh and chilled market, and total grocery, which dropped to 1.5% and 2.5% respectively this period. In volume terms, total grocery and fresh and chilled dipped into decline by 0.1% and 0.5%, while dairy saw marginal growth (0.6%.)

As Christmas sales are no longer included in the latest 12 week data, it is no surprise to see that the category seeing the fastest rate of decline is cream (down by £3.8m) followed by cheese (down 9.6m) as both usually perform well over the festive period.  

Similarly, the retailer seeing the sharpest percentage drop off in dairy was Aldi; the retailer that “won” Christmas in dairy saw value sales drop £9.1m, followed by Lidl - down £4.7million.

However, while the discounters have seen the biggest drop off compared with last period, they still see the highest year on year growth. In contrast to the other major retailers, Co-op saw a strong uplift on last period as brands moved into growth after a number of periods of successive decline in the convenience retailer.

Once again, dairy growth came from non-promoted sales, but these represented £5 million less than in the previous 12 weeks as both Y for £X and price cut promotions started to pick up.

Finally, in terms of demographics, all social classes see a very similar rate of drop off in growth. However, the younger (pre-family and young families) and older (empty nesters and retired) age groups are most driving the decline.