Beer sales steady for a week (BUD)
For the week ended August 8 off-premise, beer category sales increased 13.8% YOY, even with the prior week, as seen in the following chart. Spirits sales grew 27.9%, decelerating slightly from 29% in the prior week. Wine sales grew 19.1% in Nielsen tracked channels (Nielsen only tracks ~23% of US industry sales), but growth in the DTC channel has been outpacing the off-premise channel. Core beer sales grew 8% while hard seltzer grew 115.6%, super-premium grew 19.9%, craft grew 12.5%, imports grew 9.5%, premium lights grew 6.4%, and budget beers decreased 1.2%. During the pandemic, hard seltzer has gained 5.7 share points. The biggest contributors of market share include premium light beer at 2.1 share points while below premium lost 1.9 points, and Mexican imports lost 0.5 points. The shortness has impacted Mexican imports in supply from a production ban. Boston Beer's Truly brand has grown 131% over the last four weeks, in line with the hard seltzer category. Within the FMB category, White Claw has a 40% share while Truly has 20%, Anheuser-Busch InBev has 10%, Molson Coors has 8.7%, and Corona hard seltzer has 3.7% share over the last four weeks.
UK grocery sales slow slightly, but still elevated (NOMD)
According to Kantar, UK grocery sales grew 14.4% in the 12 weeks ended August 9. Grocery sales in the latest four weeks grew at the slowest rate since February. August's update was slightly less than the July's update of 14.6% growth over the previous 12 weeks. Despite the slight deceleration, online sales growth continued to be robust at 13.5% of all grocery sales. Online grocer Ocado continued to be a standout with the growth of 45.5%. Shopping trips took a dip in the week following a face-covering rule in England and Scotland. UK shoppers were making 14 shopping trips each month per household, fewer than July but more than April or May. Traffic may continue to slow with a new government plan aiming to encourage citizens to eat out in August. The UK government's "Eat out to help out" initiative led to 10.5M meals in the first week. The initiative refunds restaurant goers a 50% discount up to £10 per person for meals consumed at participating restaurants on Monday through Wednesdays in August. The UK is Nomad Food's largest country by sales, representing 31% of overall sales.
Largest food retailer reports deceleration (ACI & KR)
Walmart reported SSS growth of 9.3% ex-fuel in Q2. The company also noted that sales trends decelerated in July as stimulus funds tapered off, and SSS for the month were up more than 4%. In grocery, comparable food sales advanced in the HSD%, with strength across most categories, while non-food consumables sales were led by household chemicals and paper goods. Walmart's CFO Brett Biggs said, "Grocery sales had another strong quarter, including robust growth in fresh." Health and wellness comp sales were up LSD%. Walmart's US e-commerce sales grew 97%, adding 600bps to comps. Sam's Club SSS grew 8.7% in Q2 and was up 17.2% ex-fuel and tobacco. Walmart Canada reported SSS growth of 13.9%. The $600 weekly additional unemployment payments did not run out until the end of July. The conventional grocers did not see a significant drop in demand until the other unemployment checks stopped.
