Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The world surprises me at times. Growth in the food industry.

I get a lot of industry magazines.  A lot.  There are a lot of them out there.  Lots of ads for the latest technology, the latest food additives that mask flavors of other additives, a lot of stuff.  And articles about how the world of food is changing, how companies are dealing with the problems in the marketplace.  And the occasional story about what some business did to escape fines or jail time for deeds they have done, or rather allegedly did.  This week, I got another rag, from Sosland Publishing.  This one is "the State of the Industry" and it contains a lot of information.  It divides up the food industry into specific categories and then gives information on the leaders in each category.  By company, and by product.  Then there is information as to volume of sales, and the big one, this year's percent of increase or decrease in sales for each company and product.  And this is where the surprises come. 

Breads, breakfast cereals and other grain based foods, beverages, dairy, processed foods frozen and others, canned soups, and yes, even burger places.  There is a lot about meat as well, but none of that pertains to what I found to be exciting in the reports.The really big, and I mean REALLY BIG news is that most of the categories are still dominated by the giants of their industries in total sales, but the thing is, they all seem to be slipping.  All of the giants lost sales.  The big winners, all of the natural food companies.  Huge growth in many cases.  Double digits.  And even Campbell's 100% Natural soup grew an amazing 232%.  Of course that's offset by the 256% increase in sales of their Scooby-Doo soups.  Jeez, marketing still is king.  But overall, most of the big guys lost sales, the natural guys gained impressive amounts. 

I just had to give this info to the internet.  It is vindication that American consumers might just actually using their brain matter to determine what they need to put into their bodies. 

No comments:

Post a Comment