An economic downturn will affect market conditions, ongoing high inflation will pressure consumer spending power and operational issues will continue to challenge producers.
Industry still awaits turkey's market turnaround and big-time export opportunities, while chicken processors need to re-energize product innovation to continue to catch consumers' eyes.
From a holistic perspective, total poultry across the store had moderate dollar growth but volume declines for all U.S. outlets combined for the 52 weeks ending Nov. 2, says Meagan Nelson, associate director at Nielsen, in Chicago.
Despite facing some pricing pressures and other challenges, poultry continues to grow as a primary protein of choice for many consumers, whether they're eating out or at home.
The entire chicken category grew 2.5 percent in dollar sales to approximately $20.9 billion, Nielsen Perishables Group, in Chicago, reports for all U.S. outlets combined for the year ending Nov. 3, 2018.
Poultry retains its place as a consumer favorite, and the industry continues to produce more chicken and turkey products in response — but price pressures remain real, and new markets must be leveraged for the industry to take the next step.
With a continued growing economy and employment environment, demand for chicken and competing meats will most likely see 2018 build on the success experienced in 2017, says Tom Super, senior vice president of communications for the National Chicken Council (NCC), Washington, D.C.
Poultry products remain popular with consumers and the industry has plenty of open road ahead; but external mitigating factors continued to tamp down sales in 2016 and have some areas in need of a tuneup.
Overall sales of poultry were down less than 1 percent in 2016 from 2015 because of a decline in poultry prices as well as total volume of poultry sold, according to Chicago-based Mintel International’s Poultry U.S. report, published in November 2016.