German Frozen Food Market Still Growing Despite Impact of Recession on Consumers
Reported by Ted Shoemaker

Notwithstanding the lingering economic recession affecting Europe and much of the world, or perhaps because of it, the German frozen food market was up once again in 2008. The Deutsches Tiefkühlinstitut (dti) reports that total consumption without ice cream rose 2.1% to more than 3.2 million tons. That was an increase of 66,440 tons over the previous year.

Per capita consumption was up 900 grams to 30.5 kilograms, and total turnover increased 4.8% to 11 billion euros. Pizza, french fries, vegetables and rolls were in particular demand.

Sales at supermarkets and other retail outlets, including discounters and home delivery services, advanced by 0.7% to 1.72 million tons, while turnover was up 4% to 6.5 billion euros.

Pizza was one of the fastest-growing retail categories, up 3.2% to 260,635 tons. Miscellaneous snacks posted a 3.6% increase to 57,658. Retail fish and seafood products showed a mixed performance, up only 0.3% at retail, with fish sticks up and fillets and whole fish declining.

Frozen herbs sales posted a jump of 2.3%, showing that consumers are more and more taking their parsley, dill and the like frozen, instead of dried or from the produce department. Spinach was also up 2.3%, but the broad segment of other vegetables barely budged, and mixed and other value-added vegetables were off 3.3%. French fries at retail were up 2.6% to 151,620 tons; other potato products managed just a 1.9% increase.

In bakery products, assorted breads and rolls showed a 3.5% increase to 80,924 tons, but fancy cakes suffered a setback.

There was an upward trend in several segments of the foodservice sector, which saw a 3.8% increase to 1.48 million tons. Turn-over was up an above average 5.9% to 4.5 billion euros.

Bread, Rolls on a Roll

Baked products were especially in demand here. Whether at the hotel breakfast buffet or the coffee break at the office, the demand for frozen bread and rolls was huge, making for a whopping 12.8% increase – and even cakes were up a bit.

Fish and seafood did poorly, but meat and poultry bucked a negative retail trend to show small but solid gains in foodservice.

In contrast to the retail market, frozen herbs were down on the foodservice side but vegetables in general did better than spinach – up 3.9% to 139,678 tons. Foodservice french fries gained 6.3% to 153,403 tons, but other potato products were down.