Frozen food sales are in value growth – just. But sales are not evenly distributed across its various sub-categories and meat is struggling even more than last year. Jon Severs reports

Frozen food remains out in the cold.

Last year’s modest 1.6% value growth was bad enough for the category many wrongly assumed would come into its own in a harsh economic climate.

But over the past 12 months, this has dwindled to just 1% – largely as a result of the dreadful performance of frozen meat. Sales of frozen raw meat have slumped 9% – more than double the decline experienced in 2009 to 2010 – and processed meat products haven’t fared much better, falling 8.4%.

Hit by retail price hikes, their problems have been compounded by heavy promotional activity in the fresh meat category , a lack of branded presence and  mounting health concerns about red meat.


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