July 4th sales in produce departments of retail grocery show some significant sales shifts.
The extent to which the growth in specific produce categories during the week of July 4th is driven by the event itself or if the lift is simply a reflection of seasonal production shifts is less clear.
Any produce manager worth his or her salt knows watermelons sales jump during July 4th week.
What other categories get a lift?
In general, the July 4th lift was less pronounced in 2020.
During the July 4th week last year, the produce department was down nearly -40% in dollars versus the two previous years. As a result, category performance as it relates to department share and total sales were atypical as well.
EXAMPLE – CORN
Corn, a traditional July 4th category, was a big winner in 2020 more than doubling its share of department sales and generating +30% more dollar sales than a typical year.
EXAMPLE – CHERRIES
Cherries, exhibited performance that was the opposite of Corn. Lift, while above almost every other category in produce, was down more than 30 points compared to historical years. Actual dollars generated and share of department were substantially down as well.
EXAMPLE – TOMATOES
In similar fashion to the department as a whole, actual dollars for tomatoes was signficantly down the week of July 4th in 2020. Despite the drop in sales, tomatoes still maintained their position as the #3 dollar generator in produce (the typical #s1 & 2 fell down the rankings in 2020) during the holiday week.
Perishables Barometer
Bakery: Department dollars were down -2.8% over July 4th. Cookies catpured 10.5% of department dollars (week of July 4th) last year. While down -0.6 points vs. 2019, Cookies’ share is in line with recent history.
Dairy: Department dollars were up +21% over July 4th. Butter remained #1 and was up 21% in actual dollars the week of July 4, 2020 compared with the previous year.
Deli: Department dollars were down -0.9% over July 4th. Specialty, Dips, Service and Package Lunchmeat categories all gained share the week of July 4th, 2020
Meat: Department dollars were up +14% over July 4th. Beef gained share of dollars the week of July 4th, 2020. Pork, Dinner Sausage and Frankfurters each lost share.
Produce Detail
Production permitting, typical grilling and holiday gathering favorites should drive lift again this week in 2021. It is just a little too late to make adjustments to plans this year. That is pretty obvious.
But producers and retailers should be optimistic that whether department sales are up or down, Corn, Tomatoes, Limes, Onions, Watermelons, Cherries, Bell Peppers, and Peaches remain high on the list for consumers during the July 4th holiday.
Report Detail
This is a July 4th performance report for the perishables departments. This snapshot is intended to identify the key categories that seem to capture significant sales lift during July 4th week. To establish a baseline, Category Partners captured Nielsen supermarket data for the total U.S. Category Partners analyzed the three weeks of sales leading into July 4th. Then created a weekly sales average to compare against the July 4th week.
In this report, CP isolated and reported categories that have a “solid” sales base as well as those that saw a sales lift during July 4th week.
Source: NielsenIQ, Total U.S., individual weeks of June-July, 2018-2020
