SUMMER 2021 31
$0
$20
$40
$60
$80
$67.2
$
billions
$10.4
$56.7
$69.8
$10.8
$58.9
$83.4
$12.5
$70.7
MULO*
Natural & Specialty
The Size of the Specialty Food Market at Retail
Looking at the brick-and-mortar retail specialty food and beverage market specifically, it
reached $83.4 billion in 2020, up 24 percent since 2018, not including sales estimates for
Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's or PLU.
Eighty-five percent of specialty food and beverage sales move through MULO, or multi-outlet stores including
supermarkets, clubs, and mass merchants, which reached nearly $71 billion in 2020. With 25 percent growth
since 2018, MULO gained market share in the overall brick-and-mortar retail market. The much smaller Natu-
ral & Specialty retail channel, where many specialty food and beverages begin their lifecycle, struggled to
grow sales as swiftly as one-stop MULO stores last year. It reached $12.5 billion in 2020, growing 20 percent
since 2018.
Looking at growth rates by channel, MULO and Natural & Specialty channels both grew about 4 percent in
2019, prior to COVID. In 2020, growth exploded five times in MULO and four times in Natural & Specialty.
*MULO, representative of the following channels: Total U.S. Grocery, Mass, Total U.S. Drug, Total Walmart, Dollar, Military, and Club
Does not include private-label sales, specialty food perishables (PLU or random-weight specialty items sold in a supermarket's bakery,
deli, meat, and seafood sections), or sales through WFM, Trader Joe's, online, or foodservice channels.
Data may not equal totals due to rounding
SOURCE: SPINS/SFA
by Brick-and-Mortar
Retail Channel
U.S. Specialty Food Sales
