The latest market update from Kantar Worlpanel claims that the weather, rather than Brexit uncertainty, is most likely to impact meat and poultry sales in the short term.
The report also shows that chicken experienced value growth in the latest Meat, Fish and Poultry (MFP) update for the 12 weeks ending 19th June 2016.
Nathan Ward, business unit director for MFP, explained: “Chicken continues with its impressive value and volume growth, first highlighted last month, but most other markets encounter limited or declining value growth.”
Chicken breasts were key to the growth. Breasts are experiencing significant deflation as volume grows at 12%, but value only grows at 4%. Kantar says the falling prices are not driven by promotions, as we’ve seen base prices dropping and stimulating 840,000 more shoppers to buy chicken breasts this year.
In red meat, beef value was fairly flat, but that hides variation across the cuts, with steak and mince vital to the positive category performance. Mince was heavily affected with a pull back on three for £10, but increased promotional activity and falling base prices have stimulated volumes. Steak saw healthy growth, with 390,000 more shoppers, buying more often and paying a higher price per kilo as promoted volumes decrease.
“The weather hasn’t helped the market either, we were hoping for high temperatures and the start of a great summer, but have had to settle for low levels of sun and higher levels of rain,” Ward continued. “The poor weather, and potentially (in England) the football, have been holding back BBQ volumes. Sausages continue to see falling volumes, but burgers have seen small volume growth.
“We hope that in four weeks’ time we will be able to report a summer heatwave, and see improved sales across the board.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
