NielsenIQ: Surprising growth in pasta and the -1% of supermarkets in December

Monday, January 31, 2022

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The trend presented by organized food retail, as a whole, was negative (-1%), for the month of December 2021 in relation to the corresponding month of 2020. This month is especially important for the industry as it accounts for more than 10% of annual turnover. However, despite the negative results, the decrease is small if one takes into account that the Hospitality channel was inactive in December 2020 due to measures to combat the pandemic.

At -2.4% in fast-moving consumer goods

Even more strongly negative, at -2.4% was the growth rate for fast-moving consumer goods, which is mainly due to the more modest demand for the Food and Beverage category (-2.9% in value).

In fact, in all the weeks of December, the FMCGs recorded a negative trend, with the exception of the last week (27 / 12-02 / 01), in which there was an increase in sales of + 5.1%, compared to the corresponding last year (28 / 12-03 / 01), however, this is mainly due to the fact that that week had an extra day of operation of the grocery stores.

Bazaar products run at double-digit prices

As for the other major categories, Bazaar products had the highest growth rate of +14.9%, as defined by NielsenIQ, while sales rose 39.9% in the last week of December alone. Conversely, fresh and weighted products trended negatively, at -0.9% for the month.

Pasta and Tea & Decoctions stood out in terms of devedevelopment

The level of sub-categories, pasta stood out, which in the last month of the year showed a double-digit growth rate of + 19.5%, more than double what they recorded for the whole year, while the very good performance of the Tea & Infusions category in This month at + 9.8% managed to hold back the negatively moving annual course of the category (-1.1%). Finally, as expected, sales of personal hygiene and care categories such as hair dye or cosmetics fell by -20.8% and -35.9%, respectively, as this December there were no restrictions applied in 2020.

Source: FOODReporter, #0654/21- 01- 2022