Trend of spending more but getting less continues

Worldpanel by Numerator UK data, published by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), shows that shoppers in Britain spent on average over 3% more buying beef in the 12 weeks to 9 August, but ended up taking home 2% less beef.

This is because the average price increased by 5.4% year on year, so it meant that despite spending more money, higher beef prices meant less product in shopping baskets.

As is usual, not all types of beef performed the same and it is particularly interesting to note that volume sales tended to decline in proportion to the extent of price increases.

For example, mince beef sales were down by 7.8% or 2,237 tonnes, as average mince prices increased by 7.6% year on year.

This is a contrast with steak sales, which recorded a substantial 13.4% increase in sales volume, with average prices 2.9% lower in this period due to extensive in-store promotions for steak meat sales.

The AHDB also suggests that the warm summer weather may have contributed to the strong performance of steak meat.

Warm weather also possibly explains why there was a slump in the volume of stewing beef sold.

Despite a modest 3.3% increase in average price, the volume of stewing beef sales slumped by 28% during the 12 weeks to 9 August.

Sales of roasting beef cuts were also down, but the fall of 5.2% was in proportion with the average price increase of 5.2%.

Lamb sales

The decline in lamb sales was greater than the price increases. Overall volume declined by 6% year on year, while shopper spend increased by 2.4%.

The biggest decline was in the sales of lamb legs for roasting, with volume sales down 30.1%, as fewer shoppers bought the product and those who did bought less.

Shoulder roasts also fell – down 10% – while the volume of lamb chops sold declined by 12.3% and lamb mince sales fell by 5.7%.

Lamb steaks, on the other hand, recorded a 6.7 increase in sales and, somewhat surprisingly, lamb stewing increased its volume sales by 24.2%.

Pigmeat sales

Sales and prices of pigmeat were relatively stable during this period, with a decline in volume under 1% and spend increasing by half of one percent.

Again, there was huge variation between the sales of different pigmeat types. The star performer was sales of pork mince, which increased by 26.6%, helped no doubt that the average price paid by consumers fell by 3.8% compared with the same 12-week period a year earlier.

Elsewhere, falling sales in some categories were offset by increases on others. Sausage sales fell slightly – down 1.6% – as did sales of rashers.

On the other hand, sales of diced pork jumped by 34%, while sales of pork bellies rose by 8.8%. However, these are relatively small categories within the different pork options, so their overall impact is relatively small.

After more than a year of rising beef prices, the rate of inflation has slowed down and shoppers' purchase behaviours have adjusted accordingly.

Over recent months, it was apparent that people allocated a certain amount of money to spend on meat and were satisfied with whatever they bought.

In practice, that meant more money being spent, but the rising cost of beef in particular meant that shoppers had less product for their money.