Fresh meat increased dollar sales by 10.4% in January, easily outperforming the 0.9% increase in processed meat, leading to an overall 7.8% increase over January 2024. The five January weeks generated $10.3 billion, with $7.4 billion for fresh meat, according to the latest Performance Report from Circana, 210 Analytics, and Hillphoenix. While inflation played a role, pound sales increased by 4.5% in fresh, but this result was pulled down by the 0.9% increase in processed for an overall gain of 3.5% year-on-year.
It is important to keep in mind that last month’s report, December 2024 had a date cut-off of 12/29/2024. This likely pushed a substantial share of the New Year’s Holiday dollars into this January report. This would have not been the case in 2023 when the cut off was 12/31/2023. Nevertheless, all January weeks showed strong results.
In the 52-week view ending January 2nd, dollar sales gained 5.1%. This increase reflects a combination of mild price increases and pound gains of 2.4%. Importantly, pound sales were also easily ahead of two years ago, at +2.5%.
Fresh Meat Sales by Protein
The increase in beef prices did not stop Americans from buying more. Beef pound sales increased 7.9% in January 2025. Much of the sales and growth is driven by ground beef, as seen later in this report. While the second-largest seller, chicken had the lowest percentage increase in pound sales, at +2.0%.
The entire fresh meat aisle had a strong January performance with gains for all but veal. In the full-year view, lamb had the highest year-on-year pound increases, at +11.9%, followed by beef and exotic (mostly bison).
| January 2025 | Latest 52 weeks | ||||||||
| Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | Type | $ sales | $ vs. YA | Lbs vs. YA | ||
| Total fresh meat | $7.4B | +10.4% | +4.5% | Total fresh meat | $73.6B | +7.2% | +3.4% | ||
| Fresh beef | $4.1B | +15.5% | +7.9% | Fresh beef | $40.7B | 1+0.4% | +5.1% | ||
| Fresh chicken | $2.0B | +5.3% | +2.0% | Fresh chicken | $19.5B | +4.2% | +2.9% | ||
| Fresh pork | $808M | +4.7% | +3.3% | Fresh pork | $8.5B | +3.8% | +1.1% | ||
| Fresh turkey | $268M | +2.5% | +6.0% | Fresh turkey | $3.2B | -0.3% | +2.6% | ||
| Fresh lamb | $82M | +9.0% | +10.3% | Fresh lamb | $901.9M | +6.0% | +11.9% | ||
| Fresh exotic | $23M | -2.0% | +3.7% | Fresh exotic | $222.7M | +5.1% | +3.8% | ||
| Veal | $4M | -8.2% | -11.0% | Veal | $43.7M | -5.5% | -7.0% | ||
Source: Circana, Integrated Fresh, MULO+
