The Retail Rundown: The April Outlook

The first inklings of planting season have made an appearance and with it comes the prospect of prolonged warmer weather. April typically launches a period of improved foodservice and retail demand as the shift in seasons encourages consumers to venture outdoors and fire up the grill. Moreover, spring break is underway, giving a boost to foodservice interest.

With spring in full swing, feature volume will begin to shift from roasts, popular with cooler weather cooking, to grilling cuts. Currently, the pork category overtakes seafood for a second consecutive week with the most feature volume...

The Retail Rundown: Easter Features Breakdown 

A March Easter is approaching—an occurrence not seen since 2016. Circulars are flush with holiday and springtime themes as grocers take full advantage of the upcoming weekend. 

Pork feature volume rose through the ranks and earned the top spot of protein feature volume this week with 29% of ad space. Seafood eased to 25%, down from 32% last week. Lent ends tomorrow at sundown, meaning observers can soon indulge in meat on Fridays again. 

Beef has 20% of retail activity while chicken features comprise 11% of protein ad volume. Turkey features more...

The Retail Rundown: Ham Features Increase for the Holidays

The countdown to Christmas is rapidly winding down and shoppers are busy stocking up on last-minute gifts and food for visiting family and holiday gatherings.

For the second week in a row, pork features claim the top spot among protein ads this week with 28.4%. Seafood follows with 25.7% of total protein ad volume, while beef comes in third at 20.5%. Chicken retail buying opportunities declined to 8%, compared to 13.8% the previous week. Turkey features advanced to 9.7%, up about four points from last week...

The Retail Rundown: Thanksgiving Turkey Retail Prices Reported Higher Despite Wholesale Drop

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, Urner Barry is looking back at how this year’s retail Thanksgiving sales compared to recent years. 

According to Circana data, retail turkey prices on both a discounted and non-discounted basis have consistently trended higher in the past five years. Generally, distribution has also seen an uptrend in recent years. 

Distribution is a measure that reports the distribution of discounted and non-discounted items. It takes into account the number of Universal Product Codes (UPCs) selling within a given aggregate...