Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | May 2022

Council Update

Next Council meeting – June 23-24, 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 May, Mushrooms in Schools will be celebrating National School Lunch Hero Day on our social media platforms and newsletter. Other activities on our social media channels we will be amplifying he Blended Burger Contest. We encourage other channels to amplify National School Lunch Hero Day by sharing our posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Highlights from April

PUBLIC RELATIONS & DIGITAL

Mushroom Council is collaborating with 15 renowned chefs on Kittch all throughout April in celebration of Earth Month, sharing mushroom recipes and sustainability content. Kittch is an online platform for chefs to interact with fans through video, live streams, and interactive classes, bringing food from the professionals to the consumer. Mushroom industry members are encouraged to join at www.kittch.com.

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 School created a pre-kindergarten nutrition education book, “Mighty Mushroom & Friends” for Child and Adult Care Food Program sponsors and school foodservice directors. The book and activity sheet can be found here. Please share on your own social channels and encourage your sales teams to share with your school foodservice clients and contacts.

Metrics

Notable Impressions Highlights:

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.

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.

Monthly Topline Report

Tracker Highlights – Period ending 04/17/2022

Dollars, Units and Volume Performance

In the first quarter of 2022, total food and beverages dollar sales grew 6.2%, while units were down 3.4%. The produce department reached $18.2 billion in sales in the first three months of the year. This was up 4.7% from the first quarter of 2021, however, pound sales were down 4.8%. The difference is a good indication for inflation that dominated the headlines across virtually all categories. The average price per volume across fruits and vegetables reached $1.89, up 9.9% versus the first quarter of 2021.
Inflation is one of the four major undercurrents that are driving performance in the current marketplace. Aside from consumer engagement and inflation, performance is also driven by the producers’ ability to meet product demand and the sales results in the first and second pandemic years. Many produce items, mushrooms included, are not lacking from consumer demand but rather the supply chain is struggling to meet the demand due to labor, transportation, packaging, production inputs and other issues. Additionally, the greater the early pandemic spikes, the harder the road to continued growth. Fresh mushrooms were among the top 10 produce categories in absolute dollar growth for 52 straight weeks, creating a tough path for continued gains, especially in the light of limited supply.
In the first three months of 2022, mushrooms reached $343 million in sales. This was down from 2021, but up against 2020 and 2019. During the four weeks ending April 17, sales were down in going up against the enormous sales spikes of late March and early April in 2020.

The effect of going up against the two record 2020 weeks is clearly seen in the week-by-week view below. Importantly, both dollar and volume sales were very consistent — which shows the different in growth percentage lies in the performance of the past two years, not in varying demand in 2022. Additionally, it is important to note the impact of Easter. Easter fell the first weekend of April in 2021, which is why that week is down the most, at -8.2% in dollars and -13.7% in pounds. In 2022, Easter fell during the last week in the reporting period and created a slight bump in both pounds and dollars.

Inflation

The total produce performance was heavily impacted by inflation in the quad week and first-quarter views. Total produce prices increased nearly 10% during the first quarter of 2022 versus 2021 on a per unit and per pound basis. The increases in the price per pound for mushrooms during this same time period remained below average, at +4.9%. At the same time, at $2.81, the average ring for mushrooms is higher than that of many other vegetable categories for an overall average of $2.54 per unit.

Fresh mushroom dollar and pounds were promoted less often. Year-to-date, less than 15% of dollars were promoted, down 4.4% from year ago when merchandising levels were down as well. In comparison, 27% of vegetable dollars were generated by items on promotion, which was an increase of 1.6% versus year ago.

Performance by segment

White mushrooms represented 53.7% of total fresh mushroom sales and 61.1% 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 2020 and 2021 as well, the decreases were far less pronounced.

Additional observations:

Fixed versus random weight performance: Fixed weight represented 95.2% of dollars and 95.1% of volume in the quad-week period. Fixed weight also had the better dollar, unit and volume performance. While fixed weight was down 2.6% in the four-week period, random weight (loose/bulk) was down 12.7%.
Organic versus conventional: Organic pound sales made up 9.5% of total fresh mushroom sales in the four weeks. Organic mushrooms dollars increased year-on-year (+0.9%), but units and pounds were down.
Cut/prepared versus whole mushrooms: Cut or prepared mushrooms made up 50.2% of pound sales in the four-week period. Mushrooms without preparation had the better performance, down -0.6% year-on-year versus -5.3% for cut/value-added mushrooms.

IRI, Integrated Fresh, MULO, 52 weeks ending 04/17/2022

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