SausageSpecial Reports

2010 Annual Sausage Report: Have consumers "downsized"?

Hope certainly was a word being tossed around quite liberally at the turn of 2009 â€” but it doesn’t appear that any high hopes materialized too much in regard to the sausage industry.

Sure, dollar sales were up 3 to 4 percent across the three segments tracked by Information Resources Inc. But if processors thought their brands couldn’t possibly squeeze out a smaller uptick in unit sales, the latest numbers from the 2009 calendar year proves that theory wrong. Unit sales did not match the small growth of the previous year, except in refrigerated frankfurters, where unit sales gained 0.15 percent, compared to a loss the previous year.

Does this mean consumers “downsized” in the sausage marketplace as well, choosing instead the lower-priced frankfurter (on average) over its sausage brethren? If so, how many more will downsize? With the economy appearing headed toward more of a normalization, it will be interesting to see which way sausage lovers trend in 2010.

To see the charts associated with this story, click here to view our digital edition.

KEYWORDS: economy

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Editor-in-Chief Andy Hanacek manages the editorial strategy and production of The National Provisioner and several of its associated brands and products. He consistently visits many of the most successful and innovative processors across the country, reporting on protein-processing challenges in exclusive, one-on-one tours of processing facilities and interviews with some of the most respected and esteemed executives in the business. Hanacek contributes more than a decade of journalism experience in a variety of formats.