This report is a global overview of the fresh food industry, considering its major trends and developments. The report examines the comparative performance of fresh foods across regions and markets and explores five-year forecasts. In addition, it identifies five key trends through which the global development of fresh food over the forecast period is considered.
This report comes in PPT.
Inflation had a major impact on fresh food through 2023, and while the headline rate has receded across markets, fresh food is now significantly more expensive for many people. There is little prospect of a return to 2021 prices and structural vulnerabilities remain.
Avian flu hit two of the world’s major, affordable protein sources hard in 2023. Both eggs and poultry supply (and thus prices) were affected; in the US, for example, prices rose by over 25% year on year. With the disease still not fully under control, and solutions costly and not without complications, the future is uncertain.
The impact of climate change is now a permanent fixture of these trends. Each year unexpected weather events and higher/lower than normal temperatures blight crops and animal agriculture in markets across the globe. There is little sign that the situation will abate; indeed it looks set to deteriorate.
In addition to diseases’ impact and overall inflation, fresh meat in particular has been hit by rising input costs - drought, the cost of feed (through geopolitical instability), energy costs and more. The resulting change to prices has hit sales; some of the major meat processing companies have reduced operations as a result.
Amidst the difficult times for retail, there has been a slow return in volume sales of fresh food to foodservice, now back to pre-pandemic levels. Consumers’ attitude to eating away from home is nuanced; cost-of-living pressures make it less likely, more workplace use and a reduced difference in cost between food out and food at home make it more likely.
Fresh Food refers only to fresh uncooked and unprocessed foods (packaged and unpackaged). Packaged sugar products and natural sweeteners (e.g. brown sugar, table sugar, molasses) are also included. For Fresh Food, we research total sales across distribution channels including retail, foodservice and institutions. For a selected 18 markets, we have a breakdown of total fresh food sales according to the following formats: • Retail • Foodservice sales • Institutional sales Retail Retail sales is defined as sales through all legal establishments primarily engaged in the sale of fresh, packaged and prepared foods for home preparation and consumption. Retail sales excludes sales to hotels, restaurants, cafés, duty free sales and institutional sales (canteens, prisons/jails, hospitals, army, etc). Our retail definition excludes the purchase of food products from foodservice outlets for consumption off-premises, eg grilled chicken/meat/fish bought from counters of cafés/bars. This falls under foodservice sales. For foodservice, we capture all sales to foodservice outlets, regardless of whether the products are eventually consumed on-premise or off-premise. We estimate sales through the following channels: Modern Grocery Retailers • Supermarkets • Hypermarkets • Discounters • Convenience stores • Forecourt retailers Traditional Grocery Retailers • Independent small grocers • Food/Drink/Tobacco Specialists • Other grocery retailers (morning/speciality/open/wet/farmers’ markets, stalls and kiosks, etc) Non-grocery retailers • Health and beauty specialist retailers • Other non-grocery retailers Non-store retailers • Homeshopping • Internet retailing • Vending • Direct selling Foodservice Foodservice sales are defined as sales TO consumer foodservice outlets that serve the general public in a non-captive environment. In other words, this means that the foodservice volumes track sales of all fresh food going into restaurant kitchens, regardless of what the restaurant actually does with that food. Foodservice outlets include cafés/bars, FSR (full-service restaurants), fast food, 100% home delivery/takeaway, self-service cafeterias and street stalls/kiosks. Sales to semi-captive foodservice outlets are also included. This describes outlets located in leisure, travel and retail environments. • Retail refers to foodservice units located in retail outlets such as department stores, shopping malls, shopping centres, super/hypermarkets etc. • Leisure refers to foodservice units located in leisure establishments such as museums, health clubs, cinemas, theatres, theme parks and sports stadiums. • Travel refers to foodservice units based in airports, rail stations, coach stations, motorway service stations offering gas facilities etc. Institutional sales Institutional sales is defined as sales to captive foodservice units that serve captive populations such as in hospitals, schools, prisons, military camps, hotels, hostels, nursing homes, homes for elderly people, religious houses, etc.
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