UK: Dairy demand through retail subdued as shoppers scale back

Spend on cow's milk increased by 19.2% due to a 26.9% increase in average price to £0.78/litre. This equates to 16 pence increase on last year’s price. Volumes declined by 6.1% year-on-year because, while 98% of households still bought milk in the last year, shoppers have dropped how frequently they buy it from 66 to 64 times on average per year – still more than once a week on average. Semi-skimmed milk accounted for 62% of milk volumes but drove 65% of the decline. Kantar data shows volumes of cheese declined by 4.0% year-on-year with cheddar seeing the biggest losses, closely followed by speciality and continental varieties. Processed cheese was the only category were there was volume growth as more shoppers purchased sliced cheese. Average price rises of 13.6% year-on-year led to a 9.1% increase in total spend on cheese. Despite seeing the heaviest declines in sales, Cheddar continued to account for 49% of cheese volume sales. Yellow fats (butter and margarines) saw volume ...