Holiday or everyday, 2020 has been a year like no other. For an industry largely accustomed to glacial change, the pandemic prompted unnerving times requiring warp-speed decision making and continued pivoting. Eight months into the pandemic, the virus remains in firm control of how and where people spend their food dollars. In November, the rapidly rising number of new COVID-19 cases caused renewed restrictions in numerous states. Combined with winter weather, restaurants in many Northern states were once more limited to takeout and delivery. All of this formed the backdrop for Thanksgiving 2020. “Our late October survey pointed to very different Thanksgiving celebrations,” said Jonna Parker, Team Lead Fresh for IRI. “The number of people who planned to host or attend a Thanksgiving meal with extended family dropped from 48% in 2019 to 26% this year. Additionally, few planned to travel out of state, gatherings were expected to be smaller, shoppers indicated they may be looking for a smaller turkey or another meat and many planned to shop earlier to avoid crowds. All these plans pointed to many potential changes for the meat department in a faceoff between Thanksgiving traditions and COVID reality.”   

Thanksgiving Meat Department Performance
While restaurants certainly take some of the Thanksgiving food spend in typical years, the holiday is largely a retail-focused expenditure. That makes beating last year’s result a much harder feat than say Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, which are big dining out holidays. Additionally, many people shopped earlier or diverted purchases online — in some cases encouraged by retailers to manage traffic flow during one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year. Some retailers provided free delivery, ramped up their curbside order slots and encouraged earlier shopping. Many closed their doors altogether on Thanksgiving Day to provide the team a much needed break and a few closed their doors on Black Friday, a traditionally slow day for grocery retailing.

The total meat department experienced a 5.4% boost in sales the week of Thanksgiving but the two weeks leading up to the holiday week were massive for the fresh meat department, at +17.5% and +19.9%.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

“Thanksgiving meat department dollar sales benefitted from some inflation as well,” said Parker. For the four week period, the average price per volume was up 7.6% versus year ago levels. Retailers did invest in price the week of Thanksgiving with the lowest increase in price per volume in many weeks, at +7.1%.”

Additionally, volume sales saw a big boost the weeks ending November 15 and 22 versus year ago, whereas pound sales during Thanksgiving week were actually off slightly, though IRI data does not yet include new items that are still being processed. “People told us they were shopping earlier and it certainly seems that they did just that,” said Peter Swanson with IRI’s Fresh Center of Excellence. “In all, retailers sold more than 115 million additional pounds during the four weeks leading up to Thanksgiving for a gain of 5.8% versus year ago. Once we factor in the ecommerce dollars that we saw gearing back up in October and November after tapering off during the summer months, it is safe to say that the Thanksgiving selling season was strong, yet different.”

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Turkey
Speculations ahead of the holiday were for a demand for smaller turkeys to account for the smaller size of gatherings. However, smaller turkeys may simply not have been available. Turkey sales in dollars and volume were strong the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving week, but the holiday week itself saw down performance. The four-week price per volume was up 7.8% for turkey, which boosted dollar sales for the period to +7.3%, but pound sales were off slightly prior to adding in new items for the season. 

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

“More than anything, Thanksgiving 2020 was not all about the whole turkey, but at the same time many people did not want to give up the Thanksgiving turkey traditional altogether either,” said Swanson. In all, whole bird turkey increased 3.0% in dollar sales over 2019, but turkey breast and wings took home the largest gains, albeit of a much smaller base.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Beef
Beef was one of the beneficiaries of the different Thanksgiving celebrations and has been a pandemic powerhouse since the onset of coronavirus. Much like the pattern seen for turkey, beef had two very strong weeks leading up to the holiday. Thanksgiving week itself showed year-over-year increases in dollars and volume as well, but lower than the two preceding weeks.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Ribeye had an extremely strong November, including Thanksgiving week, as did ribs and loin.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Pork
“Pork had very little help from inflation, with prices up a mere 3.0% over year ago levels during the four week period and remains a very strong number three behind beef and chicken,” said Parker.

Pork sales for the four-week period were up 11.5% in dollars and 8.2% in volume, with the strongest performances seen for the weeks leading up to the actual holiday week.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Strong performers within fresh pork for the four-week period were:

• Pork ribs: +21.6%
• Pork shoulder: +13.7%
• Pork leg (fresh ham): +13.1%

In addition to strong results for fresh pork, smoked ham generated a 4.5% dollar gain over year ago levels and a 5.0% increase in pounds.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Lamb
“While lamb remains the fifth-largest protein, retail sales have been strong throughout the pandemic as white table cloth restaurants never quite made the same comeback as fast food or fast casual,” said Swanson. “Lamb was clearly another option among households opting out of the full bird turkey.” Dollar sales increased 34.0% over the four-week period.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Chicken
Chicken is normally not a very strong Thanksgiving contender but may have provided some smaller portion options for households opting out of the whole bird turkey. Chicken sales increased 12.4% over the four-week period and increased dollars and volume all four weeks. 

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Plant-Based Meat Alternatives
“Plant-based meat alternatives certainly continued their year-over-year growth, but did not see much of a boost in terms of the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Parker. It is important to keep in mind that the growth happens on a small base number with four-week sales of $34.5 million being less than lamb, the smallest of the fresh proteins.

Source: IRI, Integrated Fresh, Total US, MULO

Plant-based meat alternatives added $9.1 million over year ago levels during the four-week Thanksgiving season, versus $544.5 million for fresh meat. In the actual holiday week, fresh meat gained $57.5 million in absolute dollars versus $1.7 million for plant-based meat alternatives.

What’s Next?
The December holidays are likely to look very different as well. “Our November primary shopper survey found that many Americans are planning to reduce their gatherings as they did for Thanksgiving,” said Parker. “Only one in four plan to celebrate with others outside their household, about half the rate of last year.” One in three shoppers expect to spend less on groceries for the December holidays, primarily due to hosting fewer/no guests this year or cutting back to save money. Online-only retailers are the only channel where shoppers expect to spend more this year than last year in terms of overall holiday spending.

For New Year’s, 30% plan to celebrate at home without guests, while only 5% of primary grocery shoppers plan to go to a party/gathering, 4% host others, and 3% plan t go to a bar/restaurant. Ten percent of those who celebrated last year won’t do anything to ring in the New Year.  

Source: 210 Analytics/IRI