Vegetable sales have been reaping the benefits of health and wellness trends for the past several years, typically posting steady growth when the category is viewed in its entirety. Shoppers, however, sometimes switch from fresh produce to frozen or canned alternatives, and vice versa, depending on a variety of factors.
Here, canned and bottled produce — the primary produce category tracked by SymphonyIRI — have posted consistent dollar sales gains since 2008. Unit sales of canned vegetables, however, have been declining — 4.8% in 2007, 3.9% in 2008 and 2.8% in 2009 — which indicates that these gains were due primarily to price inflation.
The picture improved somewhat for the canned produce category during the latest 52 weeks ending June 13. Sales were up 2.6%, reaching $2.363 billion on flat volume growth.