For the month of July prior to the July 26th Boar’s Head recall that grew to 7 million lbs. of product, deli meat sales attained 69.1 million lbs. with a value of $732.7 million similar to the preceding month. During August, deli meat sales were down 11 percent from July and 9.3 percent from August 2023. The greatest loss was in deli-service lunchmeat, down 17 percent. The situation continued through September with deli meat sales at a 13-week low attaining 60.8 million lb. down 12 percent from July with sales attaining $626.4 million down 15 percent.
In contrast, packaged sandwich meat was generally unaffected and in September sale of pre-sliced lunchmeat was up 4.9 percent on a volume basis.
Concern over the extent of the Listeria outbreak and revelations of improper production and handling has obviously diverted demand from deli-service meat to pre-sliced packaged product benefiting the turkey and chicken industries.