Dairy retail performance - 2 November 2024

Growth in average prices (+0.5%) was not quite enough to balance volume losses as spend on cow’s dairy declined 0.1% according to Nielsen.

Spend on cow's milk continues to decrease (-6.3%) and volumes declined by 1.8% year-on-year (52 w/e 2 November 2024). Semi-skimmed cow’s milk accounts for 59.6% of volume sales but contributed most to the decline, while whole milk continued to see growth (+2.3%), driven by an increase in buyers as well as an increase in purchase frequency.

Cow’s cheese remains in growth with volumes up 3.8% year-on-year, and spend to rising by 3.2% (NIQ Homescan POD, Total GB). Cheddar saw a 4.1% increase in volumes sold driven by an increase in volume per shop up 2.9%. This drove cow’s cheese performance as cheddar accounts for 41.7% of all cow cheese sold. Cow cheese other also saw strong growth driven by cottage cheese.

Cow's butter saw a volume decline of 3.5%, despite a decrease of average prices (-0.2%). However, block butter saw volumes increase by 6.0%. Plant-based spread volumes increased, likely due to switching gains from cow’s butter as they were £2.06/kg cheaper.

Volume sales of cow's yoghurt, yoghurt drinks and fromage frais continue to grow, now up 6.4% and spend increased by 8.2%. Despite increasing prices, most of the cow’s yoghurt categories saw volume growth. Standard plain yoghurts grew the fastest, up 22.7% while healthy yoghurts saw the largest increase up 10.7 thousand tonnes year-on-year (NIQ Homescan POD, Total GB).

Cow's cream volumes grew by 2.5% year-on-year, primarily driven by existing shoppers buying more. Double, sour cream and crème fraiche all experienced volume growth.

See the full data and these insights visualised on our GB household dairy purchases retail dashboard.

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