Since the onset of coronavirus in the United States, grocery shopping patterns have been vastly different in terms of elevated spending, day of the week and day part, product and brand choices, and online engagement. The week ending April 19 marked the seventh week of coronavirus-related shopping patterns. In-home consumption is here to stay for the foreseeable future and the additional demand continued to push retail sales well above prior year levels, despite going up against the later 2019 Easter, that fell on April 21. During these past seven weeks, the meat department has emerged as the sales leader of the fresh perimeter and the week of April 19 was no different. Dollar sales increased 17.1% over the comparable week in 2019, beating the 2019 Easter bump, and volume sales increased 2.7%. The gap between volume and dollar sales gains signals significant upward pressure on pricing due to tightness in the supply chain. Despite the continued strong performance by the meat department, total perimeter sales were up just 1% due to the sales declines experienced in deli prepared, fresh bakery and seafood.
Year-to-date, dollar gains for total meat are up 24.2% over the comparable period in 2019 and volume gains +14.9%. At the individual protein level, the effect of going up against Easter 2019 sales can be seen in lamb, that saw triple-digit increases last week and dropped down to -43% this week. Pork, chicken and beef sales continued to do well in dollars, all up double-digits.