Butchers’ sales performance slows in UK
During the peak of the pandemic, many shoppers were avoiding the big stores, instead opting for their high streets – leading to a better than average sales performance for butchers. However, in the past few months, butchers’ meat and poultry volumes have slipped back to below average and are down 4.4% compared to two years ago, in contrast to the market average increase of 2.7% over the same time.
The main driver of the recent decline in volumes is a reduction in shopper numbers, with nearly 400,000 fewer shoppers than the same period in 2020, and around 200,000 fewer than 2019 (Kantar, 12 w/e 5 Sep 21). Many of those gained during the pandemic haven’t continued to shop with these local stores and in the latest 12 weeks, just 7% of households bought meat and poultry from a butcher.
Opportunities exist to attract shoppers back to their local butchers and increase sales, such as maximizing on the seasonal peaks, including the Christmas trading period, by offering incentives to return throughout the following year.
There is an also an opportunity to encourage existing light shoppers to add a bit more to their basket. In the last 12 weeks, light shoppers bought an average of 0.7kg of red meat per trip, whereas medium shoppers bought 1.2kg and heavy shoppers 1.6kg. Encouraging those light shoppers to increase their red meat purchases to around 1kg would equate to an extra £5.6m worth of sales for butchers, in that 12-week period.
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