The changing lifestyle habits forced on us by the Covid-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdown have led to mixed fortunes for different categories within FMCG.
One of the biggest winners during the disruption has been the Breakfast Cereals category. With less people leaving the house to go to work, more of us have been enjoying our breakfasts at home. While ‘on the go’ breakfast solutions such as cereal bars have been adversely affected, Breakfast Cereals are up +8.6% for the same period year-on-year in retail.
OneView provides the insight you need
The beauty of the OneView data platform from SalesOut is that it enables you to see the big picture, as well as all the smaller ones in each different part of the country. As some regions go back into lockdown, OneView’s postcode data can provide you with up-to-date insight to help you plan, track and react at a local level with confidence.
So, in the case of Breakfast Cereals, what are the interesting things that OneView can tell us by putting the spotlight on their performance year to date (YtD) and in the last four weeks?
Priority purchase during lockdown
The general trend we can see is that Breakfast Cereals became a priority purchase during the first lockdown period, but then sales fell away during the summer. However, as tends to happen every year, the category was boosted by the return to schools with families settling back into their old routines.
Other insight revealed by the OneView data is that cereals are currently performing more strongly than the market average in all UK regions. Bearing in mind everything we’ve considered already, this is no great surprise. Dig a bit deeper and the findings become a little more interesting. Foodservice has a higher share of Breakfast Cereal than Retail in UK wholesale, and is currently growing at a faster rate.
Drop in Foodservice sales
Despite the long-term shutdown in Foodservice, it still retains a significant share of total breakfast Cereal sales YtD. It is only in Cold Cereals where Retail has a higher YtD value share. Having said that, with the last four weeks at -8.0% in Foodservice, the current forecast suggests a full year decline of -16.7%.
While the OneView data is full of good news for the Breakfast Cereals category, there is one segment that isn’t faring quite so well. Breakfast snacks, such as cereal bars and pastries, is the only area with overall YtD value decline.
See the trends unfolding
The more insight you have of how things are panning out right now in the FMCG marketplace, the better-informed your decisions will be as you try to make robust plans for what is still an uncertain future.
If you’d like to see the stats and figures behind some of these findings to give you a better understanding of what’s going on in the Breakfast Cereals category, then take a look at the report compiled from OneView data.
