Hot dogs remain a go-to solution amid COVID-19

With many lunch, dinner and snack occasions having moved from restaurants, campuses, school cafeterias and other foodservice establishments to at home, the demand for hot dogs at retail sky-rocketed along with it. Hot dogs very quickly ramped up as a go-to solution for families as a kid-friendly, protein dense, versatile and easy-to-prepare solution amid the coronavirus outbreak. During regular times, hot dogs are a $2.3 billion category with 52-week growth of +0.7%, according to IRI. But sales quickly geared up as shoppers started stocking up on staples in March. 210 Analytics analyzed the IRI sales data for the week ending April 12 — Easter week. Hot dog sales have seen double- and triple-digit increases ever since the week ending March 8. The two panic purchase weeks, March 15 and 22 were the biggest for hot dog sales as well. But with increases of between 35% and 45%, the subsequent weeks remained highly elevated.

Type
Beef hot dogs represent about 61% of total hot dog sales and grew the most. Sales during Easter week were still up 42%, despite the enormous increases in prior weeks. This points to a higher everyday demand following the initial stock-up purchases.

	Hot dog sales by week ending versus the comparable week in 2019
	03-08-20	03-15-20	03-22-20	03-29-20	04-05-20	04-12-20
Beef	+14%	+134%	+136%	+52%	+59%	+42%
Non-beef	+10%	+106%	+114%	+33%	+37%	+24%

Source: IRI, MULO, 1 week $ growth versus year ago

The surge in sales numbers shows shoppers are in the market for all pack sizes, large and small. The most common pack size is eight hot dogs, representing 51% of all sales, which explains the somewhat lower growth rate. Even so, larger pack sizes of 10 and 24 counts have been doing very well these past few weeks.

	Hot dog sales by week ending versus the comparable week in 2019
	03-08-20	03-15-20	03-22-20	03-29-20	04-05-20	04-12-20
8 count	+5%	+109%	+119%	+37%	+42%	+31%
10 count	+15%	+113%	+132%	+54%	+58%	+37%
6 count	+17%	+173%	+112%	+46%	+60%	+30%
24 count	+13%	+118%	+124%	+51%	+60%	+42%

Source: IRI, MULO, 1 week $ growth versus year ago

Stay tuned for more sales updates every Tuesday by IRI and 210 Analytics and be sure to recognize the incredible effort by everyone in the meat supply chain to make these kinds of sales figures reality.

Deli — Continued Mixed Results
During Easter week, the deli department experienced year-over-year sales increases for cheese, flat results for deli meat and continued deep declines for deli-prepared. Service counters and self-serve areas continued to be closed across many retailers, or have shifted to an expanded meat/cheese grab-and-go assortment. For all three deli department areas, sales patterns started to shift significantly the week ending of March 15. Deli cheese and meat sales jumped by double-digits, and deli prepared very quickly started to flatten out and decline in subsequent weeks.

Deli Meat
Random weight deli meat sales flattened out Easter week in terms of dollar sales and actually saw a small decline in volume. “The decline in trips, consumers’ desire to move to the store quickly and the closing of service counters for some stores is starting to wreak havoc on deli meat in recent weeks,” said Jonna Parker, Team Lead Fresh for IRI. “But we are seeing an interesting development relative to those stores that are providing deli meat as a grab-and-go option. This had already started to gear up in the past two years, but has really taken off amid COVID-19. While service counter sales made up 68% of deli meat sales this week, sales were down 16.6%. Sales for service counter deli meat that has been pre-sliced for grab-and-go, but still sold non-UPC, was up 68.5%. This is a key takeaway for retailers who are not yet providing this service.”

Parker did point out that package size variety is key and shoppers agree. One shopper on the CCF system wrote, “It would be wonderful to have the pre-sliced meats in smaller weights. I would like to buy a couple of different deli meats rather than 1 pound of one kind of meat.” This is a good reminder that household size, desire for variety and budgets may call for package size variety. Other shoppers are not in favor of pre-sliced, “You closed your deli and now I have to sort through bags of meat and cheese that have been handled by many customers instead of one employee behind the counter.” In response, some retailers have ramped up their online meat/cheese deli ordering system to provide customization without the in-store interaction.

Source: 210 Analytics/IRI