Dollar sales grew by 7.4% to $85.9 billion within food, drug and mass-merchandisers (including Walmart), with shares recorded at 16.9%. This reflects an increase of 0.7 points from the previous year. Growth peaked in 2008 but then slowed slightly in 2009 [image-nocss] with falling commodity prices and increased retail discounting.
Unit sales similarly experienced high growth during the same period. Sales increased by 5% to 39.5 billion units and unit shares rose by 1.3 points (a total of 17.5%).
All store brand food and nonfood categories experienced better performance versus brands, but edible departments saw the greatest uptick in both dollar and unit sales.
Top dollar growth categories were frozen pizza and snacks (38%), flour (36%) and dry vegetables and grains (31%) and dry grocery and dairy departments accounted for 59% of total sales. Baby food (37%), candles and incense (23%), frozen pizza and snacks (22%), cheese (16%) and flour (15%) topped unit sales.
The importance of food and at-home meals in this down economy has led to strong growth for both branded and private-label offerings in some basic food categories such as flour (36% store brand growth compared to 17% branded), dry vegetables and grains (31% to 20%), salad dressing and mayo (30% and 8%), pasta (27% to 15%) and baking mixes (22% and 10%).
"When categories are sorted by store brand share, from high to low, some patterns emerge," said Todd Hale, senior vice president of Consumer & Shopper Insights at Nielsen, New York. "Store brand performance and share is strongest in commodity categories. Milk, fresh eggs, sugar and substitutes and canned vegetables top the list. Where store brand share is the lowest is among categories where we see strong marketing support for top brands including candy, gum, beer and those where a high-level of innovation occurs like detergents, deodorant and cosmetics."
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