The week ending April 12 marked the year’s earlier Easter as well as the sixth week of the coronavirus-related grocery shopping patterns. Since the onset of coronavirus in the United States, grocery retailing conditions have been unlike any ever experienced in recent history. Unprecedented pantry, fridge and freezer loading by consumers across the United States emptied stores for days and weeks on end, resulting in incredible sales surges and widespread out-of-stocks conditions. During the week of April 12, many stores further sharpened safety measures, such as metered entry, asking shoppers to limit visits to one person per cart and encouraging consumers to shop just once a week, while avoiding stocking up on any one item.
During these past six weeks, the meat department has emerged as the sales leader of the fresh perimeter and the week of April 12 was no different. Dollar sales increased 43% over the comparable week in 2019 and volume sales increased 36%. This means rather than slowly trending down, sales were actually up week over week as well as year over year. Total perimeter sales were up 18% and food sales excluding fresh were up 30%. While sales were undoubtedly influenced by Easter, celebrations were hardly typical with most consumers under shelter-in-place mandates. This points to a continued higher everyday demand as well. All meat and poultry continued to sell far above typical levels. While small from a dollar perspective, lamb posted the highest percentage gains (+108%), followed by turkey (+60%). Beef continued to have the highest absolute dollar gains (+$188 million). Year-to-date, dollar gains for total meat are up 20.2% over the comparable period in 2019.