The rebound of Beverage continues, propelled by hospitality venues reopenings. This is the most striking fact emerging from the surveys carried out for TUTTOFOOD2023 by IRI on retail sales. Between December 2020 and the same month in 2021, sales of Alcoholic Beverages, Non-alcoholic Beverages, Beer and Wine in the Beverage Wholesalers channel (Integrated and Consortia) has in fact seen a boom of as much as a third (+32%), making a comeback worth beyond the three billion threshold (€3,089 million).

Although, which figures give us insight into packaged food trends in retail? After significant growth in 2020 linked to lockdowns, and the pandemic in general, Italians seem to be taking a breather in 2021. Overall, packaged food has endured (-1.5%), just short of the 4 billion mark (€3,988 million) , however many product categories reported negative growth.

Insights into consumption trends suggested by the product categories continuing to grow are interesting. Apart from exploiting Seasonal Products - which are up by 25%, largely due to their specific nature and to changing throughout the year - the excellent performance of Fresh Desserts is worthy of mention, a sign that Italians still want to treat themselves: with a double-digit growth (+12.6%), they reached sales of €26 million.

Meanwhile double figures for pasta imply that, on the one hand, we still want to be hands-on in the kitchen, perhaps preparing a good sauce for Fresh Pasta (which grew 1.9% to €72 million). On the other, we’ve stocked up on basic and long-lasting products such as Dry Pasta (+7.4% to €95 million). Packaged Meat also performed well, up 5.9% worth a total of €80 million.

So it is a wait-and-see end to the year, with an eye toward what is unfolding in a 2022 yet to be deciphered.