In January 2025 (the five weeks ending 2/2/2025), the price per unit across all foods and beverages in the Circana MULO+ universe stood at $4.24. This reflects an increase of 2.8% over January 2024. Fresh food prices averaged $4.30, which was an increase of 4.3% over January 2024. The upswing in January prices was influenced by substantial inflation in eggs. Egg prices have broken past previous records due to HPAI’s ongoing impact on egg layers. Center-store prices averaged $3.94, an increase of 1.8% over January 2024.

The average price per pound in the meat department across all cuts and kinds, both fixed and random weight, stood at $4.75 in January 2025, up 4.2% year-on-year. Processed meat prices rose the least in January, at +1.3% in sharp contrast to the prices of fresh meat that increased 5.6%. 

January experienced a mix of price movements at the protein level. Beef continued to experience inflation with the January rate of increase of 7.1% sitting above the 52-week average increase of 5.0%. Other proteins experiencing inflation include bacon, lunchmeat and chicken. Prices decreased for others in January, including turkey, lamb, smoked ham and fresh exotic, that includes bison. 

Meat sales

Fresh meat increased dollar sales by 10.4% in January, easily outperforming the 0.9% increase in processed meat, leading to an overall 7.8% increase over January 2024. The five January weeks generated $10.3 billion, with $7.4 billion for fresh meat. While inflation played a role, pound sales increased by 4.5% in fresh, but this result was pulled down by the 0.9% increase in processed for an overall gain of 3.5% year-on-year. 

It is important to keep in mind that last month’s report, December 2024 had a date cut-off of 12/29/2024. This likely pushed a substantial share of the New Year’s Holiday dollars into this January report. This would have not been the case in 2023 when the cut off was 12/31/2023. Nevertheless, all January weeks showed strong results.

In the 52-week view ending Jan. 2, 2025, dollar sales gained 5.1%. This increase reflects a combination of mild price increases and pound gains of 2.4%. Importantly, pound sales were also easily ahead of two years ago, at +2.5%.  

The Wednesday New Year’s Day holiday timing and different date cut-offs in 2023 and 2024 pushed much of the spending into the January report. The first week of January was the biggest with a year-over-year pound increase of 5.0%. That said, the second, third and fourth weeks also generated substantial year-over-year increases. 

The third week did particularly well with a year-over-year pound gain of 6.5%.

Assortment

Meat department assortment, measured in the number of weekly items per store, averaged 449 SKUs in January 2025, which exceeds the average number of items for most of 2024.

Fresh meat sales by protein 

The increase in beef prices did not stop Americans from buying more. Beef pound sales increased 7.9% in January 2025. Much of the sales and growth is driven by ground beef, as seen later in this report. While the second-largest seller, chicken had the lowest percentage increase in pound sales, at +2.0%.

The entire fresh meat aisle had a strong January performance with gains for all but veal. In the full-year view, lamb had the highest year-on-year pound increases, at +11.9%, followed by beef and exotic (mostly bison). 

Processed meat 

Processed meat reflects a range of performances in January. While packaged lunchmeat and smoked ham decreased year-over-year in pound sales, processed chicken and hotdogs had a big month. January generally outperformed in comparison to the full-year view, with a strengthening performance for breakfast sausage, bacon, hotdogs and processed chicken.

Grinds
 Ground beef had another enormous month, with $1.6 billion in sales during the five January weeks. This was an increase of 13.7% in dollars and 5.3% in pounds versus January 2024. Ground chicken also had big gains this month, whereas ground lamb was down. During the latest 52 weeks, ground beef sales reached $15.5 billion, with a 4% increase in pounds.

What’s next?

According to Brick Meets Click/Mercatus, the US online grocery market closed out 2024 on a high note. December was the fifth consecutive month of sales exceeding $9.5 billion, driven by strong growth in all fulfillment methods and aggressive promotions on memberships and subscriptions. Total eGrocery sales climbed 9% for the year, with the second half driving the momentum. This means winning with meat and deli has to include winning in online purchases.

The holidays continue to deliver for grocery retailing. 

• Super Bowl represents substantial spikes for center-store and perishable items at retail, including chips, avocados, chicken wings and other items focused on entertaining. Repeating similar promotions for other sporting events, including March Madness, can help secure a greater share of total dollars spent on sporting events. For Super Bowl LIX, 27% of consumers who watched the event ordered food from a restaurant. 

While Valentine’s Day was traditionally a larger occasion for foodservice, the holiday turned retail-centric at the onset of the pandemic. Restaurant foodservice has never quite recovered to 2019 levels. With the holiday on a Friday, and during the weekend the next few years, bringing easy, tasty and cost-effective solutions for a special meal at home across departments will be key.  

Date ranges: 

2024: 52 weeks ending 12/29/2024         

Q4 2024: 13 weeks ending 12/29/2024       

January 2025: 5 weeks ending 2/2/2025