TOP CPG CATEGORIES WEEK OF MAY 30

With many employees slowly returning to the office and businesses in the services sector reopening, CPG purchasing behavior is expected to continue to become more similar to how it looked pre-COVID. While some pandemic-caused changes will stick around, consumers have found new brands they love and have returned to products they haven’t tried since childhood. Old habits die hard.

Although Americans are still spending a lot more time at home, which means more home cooking, year-over-year category changes for the week ending May 30th looked a lot less dramatic than the week prior. Consistent with what we’ve seen for the past three months, consumers are looking for convenience and comfort at the grocery store. And breakfast remains the most important meal of the day. (We can totally relate.)

Mexican and Italian categories — popular with families for flavor and affordability — have seen higher purchase rankings throughout the pandemic than the year prior, but began to look more similar to 2019 during this final week of May. We’ve also commented several times on the increased purchasing of baking supplies, which seems like one of those trends that may stick around for a while.

Surprisingly, purchasing hand sanitizer has started to level off for the first time since the widespread out-of-stocks experienced at the end of March/beginning of April.