Has inflation driven consumers away from name-brand products in favor of premium-price items in supermarkets? According to those responsible for the different supermarket chains, this trend has been confirmed for several months but it does not affect all brands. The panelist NielsenIQ has just published its barometer of the best benchmarks for fresh consumer and self-service goods (PGC-FLS) for the month of April: it shows that inflation has caused significant movements in the different top 10 products.
The panelist established four product rankings: the PGC-FLS with the best billing in a year, those with the best sales in unit volume, and non-cash PGC-FLS duplicates.
Crystal Water Mastery
During the past year, the star reference on the shelves was the pack of six 1.5-liter bottles of Cristaline with sales of 302.2 million euros. In terms of volumes, more than 265 million packs have been sold in the last 12 months, an increase of 11.6%. Nielsen specifies that the product “thus dethrones the historic and emblematic liter Ricard with just over a million euros additionally generated in the last 12 months, crossing the symbolic bar of 300 million euros.”
The large format Coca-Cola bottle completes the podium but far from the leading duo, with a turnover of 167.6 million euros, 7.3% more and 87.5 million bottles sold. It is worth highlighting the strong increase in sales generated by the soft drink in the format of packs of six 33cl cans (+31%). In unit volumes, the most significant increase is that of the half-liter bottle of Cristaline (+43.3%) followed by the Redbull can (+33%). On the contrary, it is the Volvic and Hépar six-packs that suffer from inflation with respective falls of 4.6% and 8.8% in their volumes sold.
Excluding liquids, Nutella and the Presidente brand stand out
As an example of the success of the famous spread in this inflationary context, we can see that the one-kilo jar of Nutella is the only non-liquid reference in the top 10 PGC-FLS billings. With close to 22 million jars sold in the last year, 28.3% more, the product generated no less than 123 million euros. For its part, the 825-gram format saw its sales fall by 12.3%. The Ferrero Rocher box has made a sensational entry into the PGC-FLS top 10 turnover in the non-liquids category: its €75 million in sales put it in the runner-up position to Nutella.
Le Caprice des Dieux completes this podium with a turnover of just under 70 million euros, closely followed by the 250-gram President unsalted butter, which registered a drop in sales of 8.1%. However, the product leads the top 10 by volume of PGC-FLS units with 29 million packages sold. Other President brand products appear in this latest ranking, such as the 200-gram package of grated Emmental cheese or the 250-gram box of Camembert that is in the top 5 and is not far from reaching the podium with 24.6 million on sales, up to 10%.
It is also worth noting the good performance of the 200-gram Soignon goat cheese, second in volume among non-liquid products and which appears in the top 10 in terms of turnover. Particularly affected by inflation, Lotus Confort toilet paper logically sees a reduction in its sales volumes, up to -15% for the bag of 24 rolls. “We can see that the positions are moving strongly this year in the different top 10, either in unit or in billing, with or without cash, summarizes NielsenIQ.
Source: BFM TV
