More than half, 56% of primary grocery shoppers, were extremely concerned about COVID-19 this week, according to the IRI survey of primary grocery shoppers. This is the highest rate on the question since the first week of May. Additionally, more than one-third of Americans said they were more concerned than they were last week, especially shoppers residing in California (49%), Texas (46%) and Florida (42%). This heightened concern is translating into more of the total food demand flowing to retail than seen during some of the non-holiday weeks in May and June. Additionally, many shoppers are dealing with financial pressure. In IRI’s survey this past week, 30% of primary grocery shoppers say their financial situation is a little or a lot worse off than it was a year ago.
All this resulted in continued highly elevated demand for meat at retail. Meat department dollar sales increased 22.2% versus year ago — about one percentage point less than last week’s 23.4% and the 20th week of double-digit gains since the onset of the pandemic. Whereas dollar sales were slightly lower than the week prior, volume sales increased as prices became more favorable for consumers. Volume sales increased 11.0%, the second week of double digit volume gains in July. Unit sales continue to wow as well, with 21.2 million more transactions compared with same week year ago and 842 million more transactions since the pandemic began. Pre-pandemic, total meat dept units were down versus year ago.