Double-digit growth in modern distribution revenues in July 2022 with + 10.4% compared to July 2021, while turnover reached 9.5 billion. During the month, inflation in packaged consumer goods was recorded at + 9.4%. This is what the NielsenIQ analysis «The state of consumer goods in Italy» shows, in which every month the consumption scenario and the purchasing habits of households in the large-scale distribution are monitored.
There is a minimal change in the impact of inflation on the choice of products in the shopping cart with a decrease in the mix of a tenth of a point thus bringing the real change in prices to 9.3%, with an increase of 2 percentage points on June in which there was a + 7.3% compared to the previous month.
«The data collected – explains Luca De Nard, CEO of NielsenIQ Italia – still highlight the low propensity of Italians to save, despite the fact that the inflation rate is rapidly rising with an almost double-digit value. In fact, this is demonstrated by the homogeneous growth of the overall volumes of the various distribution channels of mass consumption. We foresee a very critical autumn, given the continuous price rush caused by the increase in the cost of energy and raw materials that will lead to inflation to weigh even more on the balance sheet of Italian households, therefore consumption in the last part of the year could vary considerably ».
Among the various sales channels there was an increase in discount sales (+ 11.9%), followed by supermarkets (+ 10.8%), markets specialized in household and personal products (+9.9 %) and self-service ones (+ 7.3%). For their part, the chains are offering fewer promotional products. Promotional pressure thus falls by almost 3 percentage points, returning to 21.7 per cent. As regards the segment of private label products, their market share remained equal to 21.2% of the LCC in the Hyper, Super and Free Service perimeter (the smaller supermarkets) which becomes 29.8% of the total including discounters.
Among the best-selling products in July, those for pets (14.6%) and cold (+ 15.1%) stand out. The positive trend for fresh products is confirmed in most of the distribution channels, with self-service (+ 5.1%) and discount (+ 9.6%) which respectively recorded the worst and best trends. The most dynamic categories were bread & pastry & pasta (+ 17.1%), while the fish market continued to decline (-5.2%). The trend of packaged products continues to increase in value by + 10.1% (-0.7% in volume). Across the country, the grocery product area recorded an increase in value over the month of July equal to + 11% (+ 1.6% in volume). At the product level, fresh dessert, sunflower oil and sparkling water lead the NielsenIQ Top10 ranking.