Sales of fast-moving consumer goods grew by 13.6% in the first 12 weeks of the year – a period roughly equal to the first quarter – to 2,859 million euros. The data comes from Nielsen and shows that supermarket spending was 342 million euros higher than in the same period, which corresponds to about 4 million euros more per day than in 2022. But the trend was already weakening in March.
According to Nielsen’s Scantrends study, which analyzes food retail sales every four weeks, the market grew in the four-week period from 9 to 12 2023, which corresponds to the period from February 27 to March 26, by only 9. 8%. Although it is twice the growth of the same period of the previous year, since the week of April 25, 2022, the four-week sales growth, in terms of value, has always been double-digit and has reached its peak. peak in February 2023, in weeks 5 to 8, with a year-over-year increase in value of 16.8%.
Coincidence or not, remember that it was last March 9 (i.e. week 10) that the Minister of the Economy, António Costa Silva, announced the launch of a major ASAE operation to oversee food retail, pledging to be “inflexible ” with everyone different situations that have been observed. The government’s decision to proceed with the VAT reduction on a range of essential goods was announced on March 24, although the agreement with manufacturing and retailers enabling the measure to proceed was not signed until three days later , when I also found out which products would be exempt from VAT. Zero VAT went into effect earlier this week, on April 18, and will be in effect until October 31.
Distribution brands grew by 27.6%, more than double the market average, and now represent 44.8% of the total bill in supermarkets.
Going back to the consumption data in Portugal, and with the rise in prices, consumers in March strengthened their purchases of distribution brands, the so-called white brands, which increased by 22.3% compared to the same period last year, while that of manufacturers grew , only 1.4%. Here, too, a growth slowdown can be observed, which in February amounted to 31.4% for retailers’ own brands and 7.2% for manufacturers.
In the accumulated annual result, distribution brands grew by 27.6%, more than double the market average, while manufacturers achieved 4.3%. But it is in food that the increase in sales, in value, of the so-called white brands is most notable: the year-on-year increase is 28.6% against the 16.6% of the total growth of the food market and the 6.3% % brands of manufacturers. In household hygiene items, sales of supermarket brands increased by 28.3%, in a market that grew by 7%. Manufacturer brands are down 4.6% year over year.
White brands are now worth 44.8% of the market, meaning that for every $10 bill, $4.5 is for private label products. A year ago that was 3.9 euros. In other words, of the EUR 2859 million that consumers spent on fast-moving consumer goods retail in the first quarter of the year, more than EUR 1280 million went to products from super and hypermarket brands.
Source: DN
