Even with almost $225 million in supermarket channel sales, refrigerated pizza is a small category when compared with the $3 billion that frozen pizza puts into supermarket registers annually.
But, growth in each of these categories indicates that shoppers are still looking for inexpensive, convenient family meals to prepare at home, and pizza regularly fits the bill.
Refrigerated pizza enjoyed a dollar sales increase of almost 8% during the latest 52 weeks ending June 13, and that’s actually a bit of a slowdown from calendar 2008 and 2009, when sales were up 14.5% and 15.4%, respectively. Those larger increases were likely boosted by the growing popularity of cross-merchandising efforts that placed refrigerated pizzas in meat departments. Trends point to continued growth for the category, as budget-conscious shoppers continue looking for meal solutions.