December 28, 2007

 

US steaks, seafood lead features for New Year's

 

 

Premium steaks and seafood are the lead features for the New Year's holiday but shoppers will see a broad mix of other meat and poultry products offered as well in a sub-feature role.

 

Party trays, cocktail wieners, chicken wings and other snack-type foods also are widely seen in the weekly advertisements for New Year's celebrations.

 

Many of the grocers promoted the cheaper cuts of beef, pork and chicken as low-price options to draw more customers into their stores since the holiday-shopping period likely tightened food budgets for many shoppers.

 

Credit card bills from holiday shopping earlier in the month are beginning to arrive along with higher heating bills, which could cause shoppers to look for bargains or purchase mainly the cheaper cuts for post-holiday meals.

 

Into January, ground beef and roasts are expected to be the main beef features. Ground beef is popular with consumers because it can be used in many recipes and is generally competitively priced against the other proteins. Roasts will be promoted as well because they sell the best during the colder months, and also generate more sales dollars.

 

The average price of the 15 cuts of beef in the Dow Jones Newswires survey was US$3.78 a pound, compared with US$3.99 last week and US$3.63 last year.

 

Hog slaughter and pork production have been record large this fall and early winter. After reduced production during the holiday weeks, output is expected to again be very large throughout January and likely February as well, analysts said. Several more weeks of large slaughters will be required to work through a sizable backlog of hogs built up in the back-to-back holiday weeks.

 

The average price of the 13 cuts of pork in the Dow Jones Newswires survey was US$2.30 a pound, compared with US$2.67 a week ago and US$2.38 a year ago.

 

The US Department of Agriculture's latest eggs set report shows chicken processors have placed about 3.5 percent more broiler eggs on average during the past six weeks compared with a year ago. That should keep chicken production up from a year ago throughout most of the first quarter, analysts said.

 

Reduced production during the December holiday weeks is fueling some additional buying interest for late-month shipments and early-January features, according to analysts and meat and poultry wholesalers.

 

The average price of the four cuts of chicken in the Dow Jones Newswires survey was US$1.52 a pound, compared with US$1.69 a week ago and US$1.43 last year.