As the meat supply, labor and prices continued to dominate the headlines in consumer media coverage around the country, the week ending May 10 saw another enormous boost in both dollars and volume. Following two weeks that saw sales up around 50% over the same week last year, the week of May 10 came in at +40.6%. Additionally, volume increased 27.8% versus year ago. Year-to-date through May 10, meat department dollar sales were up 24.3 %, boasting double-digit growth for nine weeks running. Year-to-date volume sales through May 10 were up 17.6% over the same period in 2019. Removing the pre-pandemic months shows meat sales between March 8 and May 5 up 45.2% in dollars and 34.5% in volume.
The tightness in supply prompted continued waves of consumers stocking up on meat and poultry, fresh and frozen. Many stores continued to have purchase limits in place for certain cuts or a limit for the total number of meat packages that could be purchased per customer. In their May 6 study, Datassential found that the occurrences of COVID-19 among meat plant workers may make 25% of consumers nervous to the point of purchasing less meat, but it does not stop the vast majority of Americans from stocking their grocery carts with meat. The firm found that 53% of Americans had already stocked up on meat or planned to stock up soon. According to Datassential, 16% of consumers have one-to-two days worth of meat/poultry on hand in their fridge or freezer; 27% a week’s worth; 26% have two-to-three weeks’ worth; and 25% have even more than that. Across all survey questions, Boomers are the least likely to panic purchase. Top on the grocery list to stock up are chicken, beef, bacon, sausage and pork chops.