Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | October 2024

Council Update

Council Meeting: The next Council meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 12th in San Antonio. 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 09/08/2024

A few of the key findings of the report for the weeks ending September 9th 2024 are:

• Restaurant visits remain subdued, while consumers purchase groceries more often to capitalize on sales promotions and minimizing at-home food waste.
• The quad-week period reflecting the larger MULO+ universe had the best results in many weeks. At $110 million, dollar sales were flat against the same weeks in 2023.
• Volume sales, at 24.1 million pounds for the quad weeks were down a mere 0.5%. This continues a trend seen in the past few reports of the market leveling out.
• Crimini mushrooms had an increase in dollar and pound sales during this quad-week, as did specialty mushrooms.
• Compared to the prior quad week, pounds increased 2.9%, moving us from a downward pattern into the upswing typically seen in the fall through January.
• 24-ounce packages have overtaken 16-ounce packages as the second-largest seller behind 8-ounce packages.

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

RETAIL REPORTS

NUTRITION RESEARCH

CONSUMER

September

The Mushroom Monday campaign will continue throughout National Mushroom Month:

• MM Influencers will post throughout the month
• RD influencer Veggiesandchocolate has launched a series of 3 recipe videos for Mushroom Monday
  • Post 1
  • Post 2
• TikTok Video Ads that highlight mushrooms using ASMR, an extremely popular genre of content on TikTok.
  • What is ASMR? autonomous sensory meridian response; a term used to describe a tingling, static-like, or goosebumps sensation in response to specific triggering audio or visual stimuli

October

• RD influencer Veggiesandchocolate will finish a series of 3 recipe videos for Mushroom Monday
• Look for social media, blog, and enewsletter focused on encouraging Mushroom Snacking

MUSHROOMS IN SCHOOLS

• We encourage other channels to amplify Mushrooms in Schools by sharing posts on Facebook and  Twitter. 
• Shareable Data:
  • 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 daycare centers to engage students this month.
  • Mushrooms in Schools is launching the second round of our Kids Eat Mushrooms, Too! Recipe Contest. This launch is targeted for our audience working in schools. 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. Our latest resources available to our audience are our Early Childhood Lesson Plans full of activities, plug and play lesson plans, and much more! Use our website to easily access these free resources.

September:

• Close K12 Recipe Contest
• Announce CACFP Recipe Contest Winners
• Provide Resources on Incorporating Mushrooms into Child Nutrition Meals
• Highlight Schools that Incorporate mushrooms on their menu
• Release Early Childhood Lesson Plans

October

• Prepare to Close K12 Recipe Contest
• Announce K12 Recipe Contest Winners
• Share our School Year 2024-2025 Resource Brochure
• Highlight Mushrooms in Schools resources to utilize mushrooms on the menu for NSLW and Farm to School Month

Marketing Summary

Notable Impressions Highlights

August:

• Please note: We are currently in the process of transitioning media tracking service providers. This will result in temporary delays in our ability to track full impression numbers. We expect this to be resolved in 4th quarter 2024
• The“Which mushroom variety is your favorite” post generated more than 460 comments on Facebook, putting it among the top 5 most commented-on posts in 2024.
• The TikTok ads generated 278.8K impressions and 3.7K link clicks with an average 1.33% clickthrough rate. A good CTR for TikTok lies between 1 and 3%, with less than 1% being the average. The sautéed mushroom ads specifically received a good volume of positive comments such as “Finally thank your fyp for sending me to heaven 🥰” and “Love them this way and stuffed too!”
• Pasta with Creamy Mushroom Sauce was a hit on both Pinterest and Facebook, which helped make it the recipe with the most website page views in August.
• The Facebook “Fast and flavorful” meals with a carousel of recipe images ads were among the top performing this year at just $0.08 per link click.

*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)