Tag: iri

The week ending June 21st was Father’s Day weekend and it resulted in a significant boost for fresh produce, both fruit and vegetables. At the same time, the demand for center-store items, including frozen and canned fruit and vegetables, also remained strong.

Restaurant transactions and spending gained back ground during the second week of June, but grocery sales, and produce along with it, remained well above the 2019 base line.

The first week of June marks three full months of coronavirus-related shopping patterns. While restaurant competition for the food dollar is gearing up, grocery sales remained highly elevated.

This increase in produce demand from the foodservice side of the business came on top of continued elevated levels of at-home meal occasions. This results in an ever-changing demand landscape for grocery retailing as a whole, and produce along with it.

Memorial Day signals the traditional start of the summer grilling season, with meat and produce promotions typically dominating the front page of grocery circulars around the country. This year, however, the tight meat supply created a starring role for fresh produce in many of the weekly ads.

Two months after panic purchases drove the biggest sales weeks in the history of modern grocery retailing, coronavirus-related shopping patterns for produce appear to be settling into a steady elevated trend line.

Pamela wonders about the other elephant in the room that could affect fresh produce sales at retail -- will consumers trust farmers markets during COVID-19?

In the ninth week of coronavirus-related shopping, patterns continued to evolve. Between the typical Mother’s Day sales boost and shoppers flocking to the store once more to stock up on meat amid ongoing coverage of shortages, grocery sales had another good week, and produce along with it.

Pamela and Greg discuss the controversial bid selection process in the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program.

What does that mean for impulse sales, particularly in fruit?