By: Alison Bodor, AFFI President and CEO
The American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) and 210 Analytics have partnered to provide weekly frozen food sales data at retail. While we know based on our weekly reports that frozen food sales at retail have seen a surge amid COVID-19, we wanted to dive deeper into consumer purchasing habits during the pandemic.
AFFI’s new consumer survey “Frozen Food Sales Amid COVID-19,” finds that new and returning customers, higher satisfaction and future intent to purchase all indicate frozen sales will continue to trend higher in the months and years ahead.
Here are the highlights:
- Sales continue to hold strong: After a 94 percent surge in mid-March, overall frozen food sales are holding at 30–35 percent increases in April 2020 compared to a year ago.
- Majority of Americans are buying frozen food: Eighty-six percent of all consumers have bought frozen food items, such as frozen pizza, vegetables and entrees, since early March. This includes an equal share of frequent frozen food buyers, as well as consumers who don’t consider themselves regular purchasers.
- The category has added new customers: Seven percent of consumers who previously, rarely or never purchased frozen foods pre-pandemic are now buying. This is a tremendous expansion of the category that could have long-term implications. This includes Gen Z buyers, as well as Baby Boomers who left the category during the TV dinner era – returning now to find newer, tastier products.
- Loyal customers are buying more and trying new: In addition to new feet down the aisle, current frozen food consumers are changing up frozen buying behaviors. Our survey found that 70 percent are buying more than usual and 68 percent are trying new brands and products.
- Satisfaction is high: Consumers are very happy with their new frozen purchases. On a five-point scale where five is excellent, convenience received the highest ranking at 4.3, and quality was second, at 4.1.
- Buyers will come back: Fifty percent of consumers who have purchased frozen foods since COVID-19’s onset say they will purchase a lot more (18%) or somewhat more (32%) in the next few months.
For more information on AFFI’s market insights, please contact AFFI Vice President of Strategic Communications Adrienne Seiling at aseiling@affi.com.
