Poultry Business has teamed up with market research firm Kantar to provide readers with detailed insight and analysis into the retail market for eggs and poultry. We take a look at what has been driving sales in supermarkets in the past 12 weeks
By Charlie Clark, Kantar Analyst
Over the past 12 weeks, the egg category has performed well. Spend on eggs has increased 3.6%, with free-range eggs have been one of the key drivers for this, as spend has increased by 5.1%. The organic category has seen great expansion with spend increasing by 84.6% in the past year.
Within the total egg category, prices have decreased 0.2% overall. Barn eggs are the only sector to have gone up in price, however this is very slight (0.1%). Promotions have influenced this trend with the number of promotions on eggs up 2.2% in the past year (up to 16.9%). Organic eggs have seen an 11% increase in promotions in the last year, as well as free range which saw a 3.6% increase when compared to last year’s 12-week period.
Sales of branded eggs have declined 10.7% decline in the past year, only accounting for 17.2% of spend in the category. By contrast, private label eggs were responsible for 77.1% of spend in the category during the past 12 weeks. Branded barn eggs have seen a 25.3% decrease in spend, branded free-range eggs has decreased by 10.7%. The price per kilo of branded eggs could explain the stronghold of private label eggs on the total category. The average price per kilo for branded eggs is 0.18 and 0.14 for private label.
Poultry meat
In the past 12 weeks there has been little to no growth in poultry meat sales. Chicken makes up 88% of all poultry spend.
Prices across the poultry category have slightly decreased, when compared to last year, with the total poultry category decreasing in price by 0.5%. There has been reasonable growth from certain sectors, such as whole turkey which has seen a 21.2% increase in price. However, this is countered by the fact that categories such as turkey roll have decreased by 31.2%.
Over, the total poultry category, own label’s share has increased by 0.8% whilst branded has remained the same. This increase was also reflected in the category’s highest performing sector. Chicken breast share has risen by 0.5% under private label, whereas branded chicken breasts’ share has fallen by 0.2%. This could arguably be down to price, given that the average price per kilo for branded poultry is £6.02, whereas it is £4.84 for private label.