Agricultural News: Supermarkets: Higher product prices drive 3% growth in Q1 2024

Increased 3.3% turnover in food, beverages and personal hygiene and beauty products

With a growth of 3% closed the first quarter of 2024 (YTD data up to March 31, 2024) compared to the corresponding period last year, for supermarkets (food stores over 100 sq.m. in Mainland Greece, Crete & June Islands & Aegean) as shown by the data available to NielsenIQ.

With regard more specifically to fast-moving consumer products, they show a growth of 2.7% which seems proportionally to come mainly from the positive change in the volumes sold, as the increase in prices seems to show a significant deceleration and fluctuates around 1%, a fact which appears to have boosted consumption.

It is also worth noting that compared to the annual consumer price index, which in March stands at +3.2%, the average price increase for FMCGs is significantly lower.

Analyzing then the individual FMCG super-categories, NielsenIQ observes that both in the food & beverage and in the personal hygiene and beauty categories the increase in turnover was +3.3%, while in the large category of home care turnover is down by 1.7%, with the average price showing a significant decrease, which may be due to recent government regulatory measures for non-food categories and the corresponding actions taken on the supplier side.

Despite the declining rate of price growth, private label products seem to have gained an important place in the household basket, as their share continues to grow, and from 24.7% at the end of 2023, it reached 25.4% during the first quarter of the year.

At the same time, promotional intensity continues to be particularly high, from 68.7% at the end of last year to 69.8%, while based on the latest NielsenIQ Shopper Trends survey, 9 out of 10 shoppers are influenced by the promoters, when they need to make a decision about the brands or even the stores, they choose for their purchases.

At the level of categories, it is interesting that the high temperatures, especially in March, seem to have favored the sales of some more “summer categories” such as ice creams (+21.0%), insect repellents (+19.5%), as well as beers (+12.7%) & waters (+10.4%).