What is Selling Now
Specialty Food Segment Highlights
Center Store, Refrigerated, and Frozen
Top 10
Fastest-Growing
Categories
2021-2023
Source: SPINS/SFA
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Frozen
($10,270B)
Refrigerated
($28,626B)
Grocery
($57,362B)
In Billions
30%
59%
11%
of Specialty Food and Beverage
Sales
(Dollar vs. Unit)
Does not include retailers' private label sales, specialty food perishables (PLU or random-weight specialty items sold in a supermarket's bakery,
cheese, deli, meat, and seafood sections), or sales through online or foodservice channels.
2022 2023 2022 2023
Grocery Refrigerated Frozen TOTAL
Dollar % Change Unit % Change
By Retail Departments
The specialty food market is composed of 63 food
and beverage categories across the three primary
"departments": Center-store grocery, the largest of
the three with 59 percent of all sales; refrigerated
with 30 percent share of the retail market; and
frozen with 11 percent of sales.
Starting in 2022 and continuing through 2023, big
categories that are shelf stable indulgences and
staples outperformed the other departments. These
include chips, bread, chocolate, cookies, beans,
pasta sauce, and soup.
Refrigerated categories that stayed strong were
limited to "other dairy and plant-based items,"
creams & creamers, and RTD tea & co˜ee. However,
refrigerated meat, salsas, plant-based milk, and
entrées, snacks & sides all produced less growth.
Frozen departments were led by ice cream
& novelties, but former fast-growers frozen
entrées & pizza, meat, and appetizers fell
behind the growth curve.
Sauces (pasta, pizza) (Ss)
Eggs
Fruit & vegetables (Ss)
Hot cereals
Drink mixes & concentrates
Cookies & snack bars
Creams & creamers (Rf, Ss)
Baby & toddler food
Pasta (Ss)
Beans, grains, rice (dry) (Ss)
37.1%
35.2%
30%
30%
28.7%
27.7%
26.6%
25.7%
24.7%
24.4%
The top fastest-growing categories
since 2021 tie into the themes of
cooking-at-home and shelf-stability
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
-4%
10%
9.4%
6.3%
9.7%
8.5%
6.8%
3.4%
3.3%
5.4%
-2.5% -2.7% -1.5% -2.5% -1.9% -1.2% -4% -1.9%
GROCERY
AISLE 7
REFRIGERATED
AISLE 2
FROZEN
AISLE 4
DEPARTMENT
DIRECTORY
SUMMER 2024 47
