Let’s talk Turkey: Christmas drives volume growth
Kantar Worldpanel’s latest Meat, Fish and Poultry (MFP) figures for the 12 weeks ending 1 January 2017 include the crucial festive period and herald a strong start to the new year, with all macro categories in volume growth.
Beef and chicken growth continues and turkey is now the third fastest growing category in primary meat in volume terms, following a record breaking Christmas. Nathan Ward, Business Unit Director for MFP explains: “Beef continues its strong performance through 6.9 million more trips, with more shoppers buying across cuts. Mince, steaks and stewing beef are all seeing more shoppers, driving their growth as base prices fall. Only mince has seen growth driven by promotional investment, with strong Temporary Price Reductions driving volume sales and holding back value”.
Ward continues: “ Turkey has seen a strong turnaround in performance moving into volume growth undoubtedly bolstered by traditional Christmas dinners all around the country. Whole birds and crowns are the important sectors propelling Turkey volumes over the four weeks of Christmas, as more shoppers enter the market.”. Fresh Chicken continues to see a strong performance, attracting 540,000 more shoppers and helping to bring the market back into value growth through breast, leg and roasting birds.
Chilled fish remains the fastest growing macro category and the only category seeing value grow ahead of volume, as more 370,000 shoppers buy into the category and price rises in natural and smoked fish help drive overall prices up. Added value continues to close in on the volume of natural fish with 640,000 more shoppers added through cod, prawns, haddock and lobster. Battered products are growing strongly from a small base as haddock performs strongly. Prawns, surimi and crab are the sectors fuelling shellfish performance, adding 2.1 million trips to chilled shellfish compared to last year.
With New Year’s Resolutions driving much more health conscious behaviour it’s likely we’ll see different picture in our next update in four weeks time.
