Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | June 2022

Council Update

Next Council meeting – June 23, 2022 – Minneapolis, MN

Open Positions on the Council (2023-2025 term):
Nominations are now closed for the 2023-2025 term.

Region 1 (All states except CA & PA) – two open positions (3-year terms)
Region 2 (PA) – one open position (3-year term)
Region 4 (Imports) – one open position for a 1-year term

Nominees are in the process of being confirmed and Ballots will be mailed/emailed on June 1st.

Shipment Summary

To see current charts, click here.

The Month Ahead

SCHOOL NUTRITION

In June, Mushrooms in Schools will be promoting portabella and vegetarian burgers on social media and through our newsletter. Summer Food Service Program will also be discussed on our channel. Other activities on our social media channels we will be amplifying the Blended Burger Contest. We encourage other channels to amplify Mushrooms in Schools by sharing our posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Highlights from May

SCHOOL NUTRITION

Mushrooms in Schools presented at the 2022 National Child Nutrition Conference. Many conference participants loved our booth, session, and resources to incorporate more mushrooms on their menus. Additionally, Mushrooms in Schools highlighted mushroom’s sustainability to celebrate Earth Day as well as amplifying the Blended Burger Contest and Kittch. Several school districts posted student favorite menu items with mushrooms, which we shared. Please share the following posts: PPS Nutrition Services Mushroom Pizza, Salad Bars including Mushrooms, and Pepperoni Mushroom Pizza.

Sales Materials

SCHOOL NUTRITION

Mushrooms in Schools celebrated National School Lunch Hero Day on social media and newsletter. We amplified our classroom curriculum for Summer Food Service Program sponsors on social media. Additionally, Mushrooms in Schools amplified the Blended Burger Contest. The following school districts posted menus featuring mushrooms on Facebook that we shared: Hamburg Farm to School, Mechanicville City School Food Service, and Gwinnett County School Nutrition Association.

Metrics

Notable Impressions Highlights:

April: Earth Month – Mushroom Council kicked off Earth Month with the “Mushrooms – The Official Ingredient of Earth Month” campaign, which resulted in our most successful campaign to date this year (measured by impressions and engagements).The vast majority of impressions (90%) were the result of our Earth Month partnerships: Kittch (4.2M), Social Influencers (9.5M) and Produce for Better Health (1.6M).
- During April, we increased consumer eblast to weekly, resulting in a 300% increase in opens and clicks.
- Website impressions (pageviews) saw a decrease due to the majority of MC promotions pointing users to the Mushroom Council Kittch channel to watch the daily streams (vs. pointing to our own site).
- Instagram Reels sharing chef stream “cut downs” (created in partnership with Kittch) helped to increase Instagram impressions (+17%) and engagement (+37%).

Special Campaign Impressions
Includes paid promotions, partnerships and advertising activities.

January: Feed Your Immune System – The revamped “Feed Your Immune System” campaign kicked off in January, leading to an increase in social impressions across nearly all channels.New digital banner ads in January contributed to 7M impressions – helping to surpass January 2021 impressions.
- Influencer impressions decreased from 2021 with a stronger focus on engagements (views, clicks) as video becomes a primary way to reach audiences with our messages.Noteably: Engagements nearly doubled and clicks to site more than tripled.
- Instagram Reels and new animations helped to increase Instagram impressions by nearly 200%, while the website also saw a dramatic increase in pageviews due to the campaign landing page traffic.
- The FeedYourImmuneSystem.com landing page received nearly 60k pageviews in January – a 411% increase from January 2021.
February: Feed Your Immune System – February saw continued success for the FYIS campaign as numbers built and surpassed January metrics, especially on the website:
- The FeedYourImmuneSystem.com landing page received more than 150k pageviews in February – a 156% increase from January and 400% increase from ALL of Q1 2021 (1346% compared to February 2021).
  - Avg. time on page stayed around 5 minute (4:59) – still surpassing the site average of 2-3 minutes.
  - A majority of the traffic came from the FYIS banners ads (115,883 clicks to page from these ads). While we saw higher impressions for the banner ads in January, we changed bidding strategies to ensure we are reaching an engaged audience – which by evidence of clicks, we are.
March: Feed Your Immune System – The Q1 campaign wrapped up in March with results that outpaced 2021’s award-winning campaign. Most notably:
- The FeedYourImmuneSystem.com landing page received more than 10x the pageviews compared to 2021.
- The Banner Ads (new in 2022) were instrumental in getting eyes and traffic to the landing page – contributing to more than 240,000 clicks to site and 61% of all Social/Digital Impressions in 2022.
  - The drop in impressions throughout the quarter was due to bidding strategies changing to target more audiences that would click.

Monthly Topline Report

Tracker Highlights – Period ending 05/15/2022

Dollars, Units and Volume Performance

Persistent and accelerating inflation is pressuring volume across departments from seafood to meat to produce. Year-on-year produce pound sales were down 7.0% for the four weeks ending mid-May. The two-year comparison goes up against some of the biggest weeks in the history of grocery retailing during the height of the shelter-in-place period. This resulted in volume being down in the double digits. However, when compared to the pre-pandemic normal of 2019, pound sales for produce overall, and mushrooms specifically, sat round around typical levels.

Dollars also could not hold the line during the four weeks ending May 15, 2022 versus year ago. However, when compared with the pre-pandemic normal of 2019, fresh mushroom dollar sales were 10.4% ahead of the pre-pandemic normal.

Though dollar and pound sales were fairly consistent week-over-week, it was the prior year performance that drove vastly different year-on-year growth percentages. The week after Easter (ending April 24th) was the smallest of the four, which is often the case for post-holiday weeks when consumers’ focus is on leftovers. Pound sales recovered to 5.4 million during the last two weeks of the period.

Inflation

The total produce performance was heavily impacted by inflation in the quad week and year-to-date views. Total produce prices increased 8.6% during the four weeks ending May 15th on a per unit basis and 10.4% on a per pound basis. The difference is indicative of smaller unit sizes. Fruit had the higher inflation but vegetables increased to an average of $1.90 per pound, up 10.4% versus year ago in the four-week period. The increases in the price per pound for mushrooms during this same time period remained below average, at +6.7%. At the same time, at $2.83, the average ring for mushrooms is higher than that of many other vegetable categories for an overall average of $2.61 per unit.

Year-to-date, fresh mushroom dollar and pounds were promoted less often. Less than 15% of dollars were promoted, down 4.1% from year ago when merchandising levels were down as well. In the latest four weeks, a larger share of dollars and pounds were promoted, with a small year-on-year increase for pounds. Vegetables, in general, have seen higher promotional levels in recent month as well.

Performance by segment

White mushrooms represeWhite mushrooms represented 53.3% of total fresh mushroom sales and 61.0% of pounds in the four-week period. However, it was brown mushrooms, the combination of criminis and portabellas, that fared better. While sales for brown mushrooms was down versus 2021 as well, but the gains versus 2019 are substantially higher.

Additional observations:

Fixed versus random weight performance: Fixed weight represented 95.1% of dollars and 95.9% of volume in the quad-week period. Fixed weight also had the better dollar, unit and volume performance. While fixed weight was down 6.6% in the four-week period, random weight (loose/bulk) was down 14.6%.
Organic versus conventional: Organic dollar sales made up 12.7% of total fresh mushroom sales in the four weeks. Organic mushrooms dollars slid back slightly year-on-year (-1.2%), along with units and pounds.
Cut/prepared versus whole mushrooms: Cut or prepared mushrooms made up 51.8% of pound sales in the four-week period. Mushrooms without preparation had the better performance, down -5.5% year-on-year versus -8.3% for cut/value-added mushrooms.

IRI, Integrated Fresh, MULO, 52 weeks ending 05/15/2022

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