March + April Softer than Prior Periods

Research evidence excerpt

March + April Softer than Prior Periods

Circana Data Explained

Grocery

Circana collects data across different segments of the food retailing industry, allowing us to analyze

broad-based sales trends. Circana data includes census data or direct scanner data, in addition to sample

data, which is based on projections using various algorithms for some food retailers that do not provide

actual scanner data. Census data is the collection of scanner data from all of one retailer’s stores in a

particular area. Census data is sometimes supplemented by random stratified sampling, whereby the

sample data are used to make a projection for the entire chain. Projections for a particular chain include

criteria such as store size, ethnicity, and population. Scanner data is provided by retailers once a week

and includes records of all products that are scanned in these stores during that week. Random-weight

items (primarily perishable products such as produce, meat, deli, and prepared foods) that do not have a

bar code are excluded from Circana data.

We focus our Circana data analysis primarily on three channels: 1) U.S. Grocery data, which includes sales

from more than 32,900 food retailers with more than $2 million in annual all-commodity volume (ACV),

but does not include Walmart; 2) U.S. Multi-Outlet+, which does include Walmart, drug store (excluding

prescription), club store, dollar, military, as well as the U.S. grocery channel, and includes data from

101,630 stores; 3) U.S. Drug data, which includes all chain and independent drug retailers (excluding

prescription). Our analysis includes both edible and nonedible categories.

Convenience Store

Scanner data is provided by convenience stores once a week and includes records of all products that are