Woolworths may have started to peg-back some of the relative beef market share gains that major rival, Coles has made over the past few months.

Latest monthly retail survey data produced for MLA by Neilsen Homescan shows Woolworths has started to arrest some of the market share expansion Coles has enjoyed over the previous three or four cycles.

For the monthly reporting period ended September 1, Woolworths’ rolling average quarter figure for fresh beef sales by value increased from 30.2 percent of market share to 30.3pc. That’s the first rise seen by the nation’s largest retailer in five months.

Coles’ beef retail value share over the same period softened a little, falling 0.3pc to 26.4pc. The month before last was the narrowest gap in retail share seen between the big two in recent memory, being just 3.5pc, whereas for much of the past two years, it has been 6pc or more. The gap was as wide as 8.5pc as recently as May.

The soft decline in Coles’ share should not be over-stated, however, as it still represents the company’s third best rolling quarterly average figure in at least two years.

Looking at both company’s longer-term trends, Woolworths’ latest Moving Annual Total (MAT) figure is 30.97pc, compared with a MAT 12 months ago of 32.19pc (-1.22pc). Coles latest MAT is 26.12pc, compared with 24.47pc a year ago (+1.65pc).

The third of Australia’s ‘big three’ beef retailers – independent butchers – continued their recent soft decline in market share, easing further to 24.7pc of all beef sales by value. That figure is the lowest share held by butchers in at least two years, and reflects the current strong price competitiveness being seen among major supermarkets through discounting, reward programs, promotion and other retailing strategies.

Among the lesser retail beef players, the independently-owned IGA supermarket group continues a strong growth cycle that started back in February this year. IGA has quietly picked up almost 1pc national beef market value share, despite the price wars happening at the big end of town. IGA’s share has grown from 6.9pc at the start of the year to 7.7pc for September.

The German-owned ALDI supermarket group has also grown this year, moving steadily from 5.5pc share in January to its best-ever result of 6.3pc for the September rolling quarterly average.

In Beef Central’s opinion, based on store visits in three states over the past four months, both IGA and ALDI have lifted the quality, consistency, portioning work, cutting lines, packaging and presentation of their beef offers, with heavier emphasis on MSA.  

Other supermarkets and farmers markets have stayed basically unchanged for most of this year, finishing September on 4.5pc share, down from a recent high-point of 4.8pc in May.     

Protein pricing

Shifting to price per volume signals for different meat proteins conducted as part of the Neilsen Homescan survey, beef finished the rolling quarter ended September 1 at $9.86/kg, up a little from the previous reporting period. Note that the prices reported by Neilsen are measured as the average $/kg value of the items in the surveyed shopping baskets, not of the overall value of beef being sold in the retail marketplace.

Other competing proteins were either static, or moving downwards. Lamb, the current focus for deep discounting among the major retailers, slipped further in average value to $11.40/kg, down from $12.10/kg in February. Chicken and pork both rose a little, possibly beginning to reflect higher feedgrain costs.

Protein sales grow

Overall, the fresh meat category (all red and white proteins, not just beef) experienced sales growth of 0.7pc for the quarter ending September 1, compared to the same time period last year.

Beef’s share over overall meat sales, by value, was unchanged at 39.2pc, but up a little from this time last year, and back close to historically high levels seen earlier.

Despite recent retail supermarket price discounting, lamb’s share of all protein sales actually fell, from 14.0pc to 13.9pc in the September quarter. Chicken and pork’s share remain remarkably static, accounting for 25.8pc and 9.9pc of meat protein sales, respectively. Compared with a year ago, chicken has lost about 0.5pc market share, however.

• Understanding the Neilsen Homescan data: MLA earlier this year adopted a new monthly retail fresh meat market share analysis, provided by Neilsen Australia Homescan. It replaces the previous Roy Morgan single-source data that has been used for the past ten years. To read MLA’s full explanatory notes on the changes to the monthly retail survey, click here