Food Inflation is Holding Up – Consumers Find Increasingly Difficult to Cope With

The deepest volume declines among the top 10 players were measured among mixed fruit and mandarins, but avocados and melons also backslid significantly

The price per unit across all foods and beverages in the IRI-measured multi-outlet stores, including supermarkets, club, mass, supercenter, drug and military, accelerated further to an increase of 14.3% in the four weeks ending August 28th, 2022 versus year ago. This is up from 13.3% in July. August inflation was +16.6% in the center of the store (grocery) and +13.3% for perishables. Compared with August 2019, prices across all foods and beverages were up 27.4%.

The four August 2022 weeks brought $57.7 billion in total food and beverage sales, which was up +8.7% versus year ago. This was about the same year-on-year increase as seen in July. August 2022 dollar sales were up +25.7% versus August 2019 — the pre-pandemic normal. Perishables, including produce, seafood, meat, bakery and deli, had average dollar performance, but center-store item sales increased a little over 10%.

Year-on-year gains were inflation-boosted, with unit sales down -5.0%. Unit declines have averaged between 4% and 5% for several months now. Additionally, units dropped below 2019 levels for all areas of the store. Yet, prices having increased more than 27% versus 2019 and units down a mere -1.3% shows that consumer demand at retail remains strong.

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