Posts Tagged “perishable foods”
Fresh categories are driving nearly 49 percent of all dollar growth across fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), according to Nielsen’s latest Total Consumer Report, with fresh and perishable foods accounting more than $177 billion in sales.
Although fresh categories are performing well in Retail stores, the sector still has some room for improvement, according to the June 2018 report.
Some findings include:
- Ecommerce is still maturing within food and beverage, but fresh perishables are an opportunity in stores today. Amazon and Whole Foods merged a year ago, and ecommerce within grocery continues to grow, but is still maturing. During the past year, online food and beverage sales represented 13 percent of the overall dollar volume seen online. Fresh and perishable foods generated sales nearly 14 times as high as all online food and beverage sales this year.
- On-the-go fresh produce fails to keep pace with clean snacking. Americans are not rushing to on-the-go fresh produce opportunities although they rank eating more fruits and vegetables as the top factor for healthy eating. They often prefer other snack options. On-the-go fresh produce — pre-cut produce that has been portioned intentionally for snacking purposes — declined by nearly 2 percent in dollars and 6 percent in unit volume over the past year. On the flip side, salty snacks are proof that consumers are seeking indulgence in their snacking purchases, too, as sales grew nearly $1 billion year over year. Still, clean-label products represented more than 35 percent of salty snack dollars in the past year.
In the battle of the burgers, frozen is still winning, but fresh is catching up; meanwhile, alternative protein growth remains strong. Frozen patties are still the staple in the burger category, as frozen meat-based burgers have seen 2 percent dollar growth from last year. However, fresh meat burger patties (up 8 percent) and prepared burgers from the deli section (up 15 percent) are both growing and asserting their importance to the future of the category. Within the past year, sales of alternative-protein burgers have experienced dollar sales growth of nearly 21 percent. However, alternative-protein burgers represent just 6 percent of the overall burger category. Despite this, frozen alternative-protein burgers grew 17 percent year over year, which highlights an area for potential expansion.
Digi International has introduced a wireless temperature monitoring system for perishable foods.
The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company’s trademarked Digi Honeycomb is marketed as an easily deployed, reliable and cost-effective service that continuously monitors product temperature and alerts users if the proper temperature is not maintained.
Transportation companies, restaurants, retailers, convenience stores, and warehouses can use the system to prevent spoilage and loss, lower labor costs and comply with public health requirements and food safety regulations, according to a news release.
A subscription-based service, Digi Honeycomb is comprised of handheld probes, wireless sensors, gateways and software that allows temperature data to be monitored, logged and retrieved and be easily integrated into back-office systems, according to the release.
The product encompasses a businesses’ front and back-of-house environments and allows organizations to address major challenges including food safety, chain-of-custody verification, loss prevention, proof of compliance and labor costs, according to the release.
With the Bluetooth-enabled system, automatic alerts can be set for all types of temperatures, including refrigerated, ambient, hot-holding and frozen.
Sensors can be installed in a variety of office equipment including walk-in refrigerators and freezers, under-counter coolers, showcase units and sandwich lines.
The Honeycomb gateway collects and uploads temperature data for processing, eliminating the need for staff to manually record or enter temperatures into a computer at a later time.