I read today about soaring grocery prices due to soaring fuel prices.
Sales of Spam rise as consumers trim food costs
Thursday, May 29, 2008
By Emily Fredrix, The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE -- Love it, hate it or laugh at it -- at least it's inexpensive.
Sales of Spam -- that much maligned meat -- are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.
What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a musical (as Monty Python mocked the meat in a can) is now back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat as costs rise, analysts say.
Food prices are increasing faster than they've risen since 1990, at 4 percent in the United States last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent.
There's no sign of a slowdown. Food inflation is running at an annualized rate of 6.1 percent as of April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The price of Spam is up too, with the average 12 oz. can costing about $2.62. That's an increase of 17 cents, or nearly 7 percent, from the same time last year. But it's not stopping sales, as the pork meat in a can seems like a good alternative to consumers.
Kimberly Quan, a stay-at-home mom of three who lives just outside San Francisco, has been feeding her family more Spam in the last six months as she tries to make her food budget go further.
She cooks such meals as Spam fried rice and Spam sandwiches two or three times a month, up from once a month.
Pulling Spam from the shelf prevents last-minute grocery store trips and overspending, said Ms. Quan, 38, of Pleasanton, Calif.
"It's canned meat, and it's in the cupboard, and if everything else is gone from the fridge, it's there," she said.
Spam's maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong sales of Spam in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14 percent. According to sales information coming from Hormel, provided by The Nielsen Co., Spam sales rose 10.6 percent in the 12-week period ending May 3, compared with last year. In the last 24 weeks, sales rose nearly 9 percent.
The Austin, Minn.-based company, also known for the Jennie-O Turkey Store, has embarked on its first national advertising campaign for the 71-year-old brand in several years. They've credited the sales increase to that, along with such new products as individually packaged "Spam Singles" slices. Also helping sales, executives said in an earnings conference call, was that people looking to save money are skipping restaurant meals to eat more at home.
Spam sales are reaching across all spectrums, young, old, rich, poor, said Swen Neufeldt, Hormel's group product manager for the area that includes Spam. Many of the eaters are new to Spam, which was created in 1937 and gained fame as the meat that fed Allied troops during World War II.
"We have significantly increased our household penetration," Mr. Neufeldt said, noting some are new to it and others are coming back.
Hormel began its national advertising campaign, including print and television, for Spam in January. Mr. Neufeldt said such campaigns are planned in advance and it wasn't tied to weakness in the economy.
Consumers are quick to realize that such meats as Spam and other processed foods can be substituted for costlier cuts as a way of controlling costs, said Marcia Mogelonsky, senior research analyst with Mintel International in Chicago.
These products have protein and decent nutritional value, and they provide some variety to consumers who may be bored because they're eating more at home, she said.
"They might not have Spam at every single meal, but they might supplement a couple of meals," she said.
Other companies are seeing similar boosts in their lunch meats. Kraft Foods Inc. reported last month that subsidiary Oscar Mayer, which makes hot dogs, bacon and cold cuts, saw double-digit revenue growth in the previous quarter in its Deli Fresh cold cuts. The company, based in Madison, Wis., has recently introduced new products including family sized deli-meat packs and deli carved, which offers thicker slices of meat.
Alot of people are tuning to Spam to stretch the grocery dollar. Spam sure has an interesting history.
SPAM, possibly a contraction of "spiced ham", was named by actor Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of R. H. Daigneau, a former Hormel Foods vice president. When other meatpackers started introducing similar products, Jay C. Hormel decided to create a catchy brand name to give his spiced ham an unforgettable identity, offering a $100 prize to the person who came up with a new name. At a New Year's Eve Party in 1936, Daigneau suggested the name SPAM.
Jay C. Hormel, son of the company's founder, was determined to find a use for several thousand pounds of surplus pork shoulder. He developed a distinctive canned blend of chopped pork and ham known as Hormel spiced ham that didn't require refrigeration.
SPAM luncheon meat was hailed as the "miracle meat," and its shelf-stable attributes attracted the attention of the United States military during World War II. By 1940, 70 percent of Americans had tried it, and Hormel hired George Burns and Gracie Allen to advertise SPAM on their radio show.
100 million pounds of SPAM were issued as a Lend-Lease staple in the rations to American, Russian, and European troops during World War II, fueling the Normandy Invasion. GIs called SPAM "ham that failed the physical." General Dwight D. Eisenhower confessed to "a few unkind words about it - uttered during the strain of battle."
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as a young woman of 18 working in her family's grocery store, remembers SPAM as a "wartime delicacy."
In Khrushchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM for keeping the Soviet Army alive during World War II. "We had lost our most fertile, food-bearing lands, the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasians. Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army."
http://www.butlerwebs.com/recipes/spam.htm
http://www.spam.com/
http://www.armour-star.com/products_luncheon_meat.html
Sales of Spam rise as consumers trim food costs
Thursday, May 29, 2008
By Emily Fredrix, The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE -- Love it, hate it or laugh at it -- at least it's inexpensive.
Sales of Spam -- that much maligned meat -- are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.
What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a musical (as Monty Python mocked the meat in a can) is now back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat as costs rise, analysts say.
Food prices are increasing faster than they've risen since 1990, at 4 percent in the United States last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent.
There's no sign of a slowdown. Food inflation is running at an annualized rate of 6.1 percent as of April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The price of Spam is up too, with the average 12 oz. can costing about $2.62. That's an increase of 17 cents, or nearly 7 percent, from the same time last year. But it's not stopping sales, as the pork meat in a can seems like a good alternative to consumers.
Kimberly Quan, a stay-at-home mom of three who lives just outside San Francisco, has been feeding her family more Spam in the last six months as she tries to make her food budget go further.
She cooks such meals as Spam fried rice and Spam sandwiches two or three times a month, up from once a month.
Pulling Spam from the shelf prevents last-minute grocery store trips and overspending, said Ms. Quan, 38, of Pleasanton, Calif.
"It's canned meat, and it's in the cupboard, and if everything else is gone from the fridge, it's there," she said.
Spam's maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong sales of Spam in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14 percent. According to sales information coming from Hormel, provided by The Nielsen Co., Spam sales rose 10.6 percent in the 12-week period ending May 3, compared with last year. In the last 24 weeks, sales rose nearly 9 percent.
The Austin, Minn.-based company, also known for the Jennie-O Turkey Store, has embarked on its first national advertising campaign for the 71-year-old brand in several years. They've credited the sales increase to that, along with such new products as individually packaged "Spam Singles" slices. Also helping sales, executives said in an earnings conference call, was that people looking to save money are skipping restaurant meals to eat more at home.
Spam sales are reaching across all spectrums, young, old, rich, poor, said Swen Neufeldt, Hormel's group product manager for the area that includes Spam. Many of the eaters are new to Spam, which was created in 1937 and gained fame as the meat that fed Allied troops during World War II.
"We have significantly increased our household penetration," Mr. Neufeldt said, noting some are new to it and others are coming back.
Hormel began its national advertising campaign, including print and television, for Spam in January. Mr. Neufeldt said such campaigns are planned in advance and it wasn't tied to weakness in the economy.
Consumers are quick to realize that such meats as Spam and other processed foods can be substituted for costlier cuts as a way of controlling costs, said Marcia Mogelonsky, senior research analyst with Mintel International in Chicago.
These products have protein and decent nutritional value, and they provide some variety to consumers who may be bored because they're eating more at home, she said.
"They might not have Spam at every single meal, but they might supplement a couple of meals," she said.
Other companies are seeing similar boosts in their lunch meats. Kraft Foods Inc. reported last month that subsidiary Oscar Mayer, which makes hot dogs, bacon and cold cuts, saw double-digit revenue growth in the previous quarter in its Deli Fresh cold cuts. The company, based in Madison, Wis., has recently introduced new products including family sized deli-meat packs and deli carved, which offers thicker slices of meat.
Alot of people are tuning to Spam to stretch the grocery dollar. Spam sure has an interesting history.
SPAM, possibly a contraction of "spiced ham", was named by actor Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of R. H. Daigneau, a former Hormel Foods vice president. When other meatpackers started introducing similar products, Jay C. Hormel decided to create a catchy brand name to give his spiced ham an unforgettable identity, offering a $100 prize to the person who came up with a new name. At a New Year's Eve Party in 1936, Daigneau suggested the name SPAM.
Jay C. Hormel, son of the company's founder, was determined to find a use for several thousand pounds of surplus pork shoulder. He developed a distinctive canned blend of chopped pork and ham known as Hormel spiced ham that didn't require refrigeration.
SPAM luncheon meat was hailed as the "miracle meat," and its shelf-stable attributes attracted the attention of the United States military during World War II. By 1940, 70 percent of Americans had tried it, and Hormel hired George Burns and Gracie Allen to advertise SPAM on their radio show.
100 million pounds of SPAM were issued as a Lend-Lease staple in the rations to American, Russian, and European troops during World War II, fueling the Normandy Invasion. GIs called SPAM "ham that failed the physical." General Dwight D. Eisenhower confessed to "a few unkind words about it - uttered during the strain of battle."
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as a young woman of 18 working in her family's grocery store, remembers SPAM as a "wartime delicacy."
In Khrushchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM for keeping the Soviet Army alive during World War II. "We had lost our most fertile, food-bearing lands, the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasians. Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army."
http://www.butlerwebs.com/recipes/spam.htm
http://www.spam.com/
http://www.armour-star.com/products_luncheon_meat.html
