Keyed by a rise in “just-in-time” shopping, dairy, deli and bakery departments are outpacing general food sales for both the first five months of this year and the past 52 weeks. In addition, they are boosted by the growth of special occasions, some 32 billion annually, and a focus on convenience and new flavors.
These were among the takeaways from a What’s in Store Live educational workshop with Jonna Parker of Circana on opening day of IDDBA 2025 in New Orleans.
According to Parker, consumers are maintaining their post-COVID-19 pandemic behaviors.
“That is, shopping more often for just what they need, when they need it. I call that ‘just-in-time shopping,’” she said. “It’s favored the dairy, deli and bakery space, because one of the things that held consumers back from shopping more in our aisles, or buying more from our aisles, was the fear of it not being good when they need it.”
Parker went on to note that weekly or monthly trips to stock up at grocery stores are no longer popular.
“Now that people are just buying what they need when they need it, our departments are more relevant than ever … the total perishable space – which includes these three departments, as well as produce, meat and floral – is really outpacing general or center-store food,” she said.
The What’s in Store Live sessions are one of the more popular features of the IDDBA show, which runs June 1-3 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, offering attendees an immersive look at the latest innovations shaping the dairy, deli, bakery and foodservice industries.
Parker’s presentation covered trends in food and beverage consumption, emphasizing shifts in shopping behaviors following the pandemic. It also underscored the importance of understanding consumer behavior to drive sales and innovation.
“What is growing deli unit sales is not necessarily meat and cheese. It’s the whole big, bad, beautiful world of prepared foods and specialty cheese like you see showcased here at the show,” Parker said.
Still, there are opportunities for further growth.
“The metric I look at the most in my analysis is product trips per buyer, which is a frequency metric. How often are people buying this? In this ‘just-in-time’ shopping era, getting people to buy products more often is the No. 1 way to grow sales,” Parker said.
“The other metric that’s really been important to analyze in the last few years – and in the coming years – is unit sales per trip. That has been a low point, especially in grocery retail channel.”
According to Parker, people are buying fewer items per trip. The barrier, she said, is not so much to get people interested, it’s to “get [items] in the basket and stay in the basket.”
“A lot of the foods in dairy, deli and bakery are impulse based. They’re for special occasions. They’re for unique situations,” she said. “We have to make sure that we don’t just get in the cart, we stay in the cart.”
Many of the foods that are growing the fastest in-store come from the dairy, deli and bakery departments. Parker pointed to yogurt and its “amazing growth rate” as an example.
Also popular are items touting low sugar and high protein, two “health-and-wellness trend attributes that appeal to all generations and all demographics.”
Other trends Parker cited were deli specialty cheese, cottage cheese and deli-prepared meats, particularly chicken, which pairs well with meal kits.
“Morning and breakfast is a place of tremendous opportunity for our three departments in the realm of foodservice. We especially see growth in the brunch sector.”
With more businesses requiring workers to return to the office, Parker said people are bringing breakfast and lunch to work, eating earlier and snacking often.
Later in the session, Parker noted that understanding sales trends has become “table stakes.”
“When you work with retailers, or if you’re merchandising and responsible for a category or a department at retail or foodservice, there are so many pockets of untapped growth,” she said.
“If we brought the foods that we’re showcasing [at IDDBA] or that many of you have in your booths to consumers directly, the sales trends would be phenomenal.”
Parker encouraged attendees change their perceptions of the grocery store and foodservice menus and to “flip the script.”
[RELATED: IDDBA Show Opens With Record-Setting Participation]