Of Emanuele Scarci
Prices still down? No, after the Italian Quarter they began to grow again and the demand for packaged consumer goods which, in the third quarter of 2023, had returned to positive territory (+2%) slipped again. It must be said that packaged consumer goods are the sector with the highest inflation among consumer goods: in 2023 prices increased by 9.6%.
If “we talk about the first 2 months of 2024, therefore excluding March which is influenced by Easter shopping – Angelo Massaro, CEO of Circana Italia, said yesterday in Milan at the Ibc conference on large-scale consumption – we observe a contraction in sales of 0.1 % compared to a price jump of 2.3%. To a situation as complex as that of recent years, the consumer has reacted by migrating between the different sales channels”.
In particular in the last two years ending last February, discount stores have gained 2.5% of market share and drugstores 0.5% while super and superstores have lost 0.2-0.3% and hyper and traditional stores between -0.5% and -1%.
More mainstream less premium
Then Massaro underlined that “there is a strong movement in market shares, a shift within classic distribution (excluding discounts for obvious reasons) towards the mainstream part (to the detriment of premium, superpremium and low cost) which represents 50% of the market. In this segment the private label gains 5 share points. Ultimately, a good part of the growth of the private label which reached almost 30 points of share”.
Finally, larger companies are those that have passed on the increases to the shelves the most and have lost the most sales. In particular, companies with more than one billion lost on average 5.3% of volumes compared to approximately 12% increases. On the other hand, those with a turnover of up to 50 million increased volumes by 0.8%, containing the price increase of 4.7%.
No plastic and sugar tax
On a more general front, Flavio Ferretti, president of Ibc (the consumer goods industries association with 35 thousand member companies), argued that “in a complex economic situation, defense of quality, attention to costs, protection of margins and maintenance of levels employment are fundamental for the maintenance of the productive fabric. The rapid decline in rates cannot be postponed and must be accompanied by industrial policies that favor productivity growth, the dimensional development of companies and investments in digital. At the same time, demand must be supported: this is why we are clearly against plastic and sugar taxes and new forms of consumption taxation”.
