Meat consumers bring Mother’s Day celebrations home

With restaurants still limited to takeout or capacity restrictions for dining in, 2020 celebrations boosted food retail spending across the meat department.

The overall 40.6% meat department gain was fueled by double-digit gains for all proteins (IRI).
The overall 40.6% meat department gain was fueled by double-digit gains for all proteins (IRI).

With restaurants still limited to takeout or capacity restrictions for dining in, 2020 celebrations boosted food retail spending across the meat department.  In past years, Mother’s Day has been the most popular holiday for eating out. In fact, it tends to be the busiest restaurant day of the year. According to the National Restaurant Association, typically two in five consumers eat out for Mother’s Day across meal occasions, or more than 92 million Americans.

There is an important lesson in the spending boost for Mother’s Day and Easter before it. Consumers are celebrating, albeit differently than in prior years. The summer months count many holidays, including several meat powerhouse holidays like Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day.

“Retailers are already shifting their attention to Memorial Day,” said Christine McCracken, Executive Director Food & Agribusiness for Rabobank. “This is boosting support for ground product as well grilling items like ribs, loins and chicken breast. Chicken remains well supported, particularly given the high cost of ground product.”

Meat department gains

The overall 40.6% meat department gain was fueled by double-digit gains for all proteins. Turkey and beef saw the highest percentage dollar gains. Beef easily had the highest absolute dollar gains (+$236 million), followed by chicken (+$59 million) and pork (+$44 million).

Turkey had a particularly strong week driven by both ground turkey and whole turkeys. The latter is driven by extended promotions by several retailers and particularly a very unique one by Walmart, representing 33% of all whole bird turkey sales over the past two weeks. Walmart is offering a special, no expiration gift card that can be used specifically towards a whole bird turkey or ham. The card has a “pay it forward” purpose to honor and thank those for all they are doing during these troubled times and to provide for those who are financially challenged. The card extending beyond the Easter holiday is likely to drive elevated sales for whole bird turkey and smoked hams for a while to come. Smoked ham sales for last week was up 83%, driven by the gift card.

What’s next?

Next week’s sales report, covering week 10 of coronavirus in the U.S., is likely to be a pivotal point in the process of establishing what the next several months will look like.

Nearly all U.S. states have started to partially re-open or have plans to do so. The relaxation of these stay-at-home executive orders looks different from state to state and encompasses everything from the partial re-opening of dine-in restaurants to the opening of hair salons and gyms to merely shifting from stay-at-home to safer-at-home. As states begin to enter their various re-opening phases, the economic and social readiness of consumers to re-engage with foodservice will become clearer.  

For the foreseeable future, it is likely that grocery retailing will continue to capture an above-average share of the food dollar with meat in a starring role.  

View our continuing coverage of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.

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