Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | August 2024

Council Update

Council Meeting: The next Council meeting will be held on Wednesday & Thursday, September 4-5 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Kennett Square, PA. If you are interested in attending the Council meeting, please let us know so we can be sure you are accommodated.

Shipment Summary

Topline Report

Tracker Highlights – Period ending 06/16/2024

• Consumer sentiment continues to trend down over concerns relative to unemployment and income versus cost of living. Restaurant price increases continue to outpace retail inflation.
• The first five months of the year show a slowdown in restaurant traffic. Where 80% of consumers ordered restaurant food at least once in May, only 70% of lower-income households did so versus 87% of upper-income households. Lower-income households are also more likely to implement money-saving measures when shopping for groceries, at 87% versus 73% of upper-income households.
• Channel shifting continues in favor of value-focused formats. Placer.ai found that the overall grocery segment grew store trips by 7.9% year-over-year in May, while ALDI grew foot traffic by 26.3%. ALDI also showed growth in loyalty, with 30.1% of shoppers visiting ALDI at least four times in a month, up from 28% last year, according to Placer.ai.
• Mushroom sales continued to be pressured during the weeks ending June 16th. Dollars, units and pounds trended down year-on-year. Sales performance trends for whites, browns and specialty are all the same.
• Eight-ounce packages are outperforming larger pack sizes at the moment. Likewise, whole mushrooms have better sales growth results than sliced, diced or cut mushrooms.
• Organic remains a growth area due to gains in 24-ounce packages, in particular.

Download your copy of the quick two-page summary, the plug and play PowerPoint ready for use, and the in-depth Excel data file.

Channel Highlights

CONSUMER

July:

• With our Chicory/Catalina and streaming programs at a close, our Mushroom Monday campaign continues with influencers, R.D.’s, and FoodService.
• Mushroom Monday Influencers continued posting
  • Urnovafoodie
  • HealthySimpleYum
  • Michelle Lee
• Digital Ads Targeting Foodservice Operators to encourage participation
  • Ad 1, Ad 2
• Pinterest Video Ads
  • Running through the end of the month, focused on recipe videos that were extremely effective at driving ATC clicks.

August:

• The Mushroom Monday campaign will continue:
  • MM Influencers will post throughout the month
  • Tik Tok Video Ads that highlight mushrooms with a hint at ASMR, an extremely popular genre of content on TikTok.

MUSHROOMS IN SCHOOLS

• We encourage other channels to amplify Mushrooms in Schools by sharing posts on Facebook and Twitter.

July:

• Mushrooms in Schools will be attending the National Association for Family Child Care Conference, where we will have to opportunity to speak with operators and share our resources.  Mushrooms in Schools has recipes, resources, and marketing materials for schools and day care centers to engage students this month.
• Mushrooms in Schools will be attending the School Nutrition Association’s Annual National Conference. This conference will focus on our K12 audience, where we will share recipes, lesson plans, and farm to school resources.
• Mushrooms in Schools is launching the first round of our Kids Eat Mushrooms, Too! Recipe Contest. The first launch is targeted for our audience working in day care centers or at home. Visit our website to share out this contest.
• Tools to Use: Mushrooms in Schools has many nutrition education resources for all age ranges of children. For a quick resource to share out, use our website which highlights key resources for our CACFP audience.

June:

• Prepare for Recipe Contest for Audience
• Provide Resources on Incorporating Mushrooms into Summer Meals
• Highlight Schools that Incorporate mushrooms on their menu

Marketing Summary

Notable Highlights for June

• May was the end of our peak season, so our Catalina, YouTube, and Streaming Ads campaigns all completed on May 31st.  

Paid Search

• Easy Dinner Recipes continues to be the highest performing ad group, with a Click-Through Rate (CTR) of 5.7%.  
• The overall Paid Search CTR for June was 5.05%. The benchmark for Paid Search through Google Ads is 2-3%.  
• The average Cost-Per-Click (CPC) in June was $0.18. The benchmark for Paid Search ads is $1.00-$2.00.  
• The search terms that result in the highest performing traffic include “easy meals,” “easy dinner ideas,” and “healthy meal prep.”
• Over 80% of our impressions come from mobile users searching for recipe inspiration.  

Facebook

• The Three Mushroom and Garlic Grilled Pizza and Steak & Mushrooms recipes were the top performing posts for traffic, with an efficient $0.08 cost per link click.
• The Beef & Broccoli with Mushrooms post generated a high 5.26% link clickthrough rate. This post was shared as a link vs. an image with the link in the copy, a tactic we can continue to use drive clicks in the future when page are set up to correctly generate previews.
• The top ad was the Grilled Mushroom Recipes carousel, with an excellent $0.08 cost per link click.

Instagram

• The top performing post was the Steak & Mushrooms, with just $0.03 cost per engagement.

Influencers

• Our influencer partners received over 530k impressions, which was the highest monthly total for the year, and a 115% increase from May.

*YouTube engagement metrics have changed. Digital metrics are constantly evolving, so we created our own updated Engagement metrics (comments + shares + likes + dislikes + subscribers lost + subscribers gained)