2022 September Board Book

Processor Partnerships Update

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Shoppers are Forced to Change their Shopping Behaviors

Fuel prices are dropping but not enough to make any positive impact and inflation continuing at unsustainable levels, food prices continue to surge ahead as predicted from the wholesale indexes the previous month. At this stage, everyone is concerned and stunned every time they check out of the grocery store. The end result of a trip to the store continues to affect shopping behavior as consumers look for deals, try more store brands and cut their dining out budgets to make ends meet. We continue to work with processors to promote the goodness of dairy to communicate the higher ounce for ounce nutritional value. With so many families continuing to eat meals at home, dairy products offer something for every meal.

The chart below illustrates eating at home levels pre-pandemic in 2019 were approximately 53% of the population. Today that figure is hovering at 80% and increasing. This is bad news for dairy products in the foodservice sector and good news for dairy products in the retail sector, if processors can maintain enough labor to keep up with the demand in retail. So far, we are still hearing of substantial labor shortages in the processor community, including small up to very large processors.