Consumer Trends
October 15, 2026
AI summary: Rising costs, a produce disruption and a widening premium-value gap are reshaping how shoppers buy meat, and the 2027 Annual Meat Conference is where retailers turn those trends into shelf-level strategy.
That’s how C&S Wholesale Grocers’ Anthony Monaco closed out the Sept. 18 webinar “Meat in Motion: The Trends Driving Sales Right Now.” It’s also the argument for showing up to the Annual Meat Conference (AMC) in 2027.
The meat department is still growing faster than the rest of the grocery store, but panelists Anne-Marie Roerink (210 Analytics), Chris DuBois (Circana) and Monaco spent 30 minutes making the case that the playbook that built that growth won’t be the one that sustains it. Every trend they flagged is one retailers will need to plan around, not just watch.
Gas Prices Reset the Year
Roerink told attendees that meat’s strong first-quarter performance, in line with 2024 and 2025, changed once gas prices climbed past $4 a gallon in mid-March. DuBois estimated the added fuel cost at roughly $40 a week per household, compounding with rising utility bills, property taxes and other fixed costs. Retail trips are down among the shoppers most exposed to that squeeze.
Produce Faces Headwinds Amid Cyclospora Outbreak
Salads and leafy greens have run about 25% or higher below volume for five to six weeks amid a cyclospora outbreak, Roerink said, a disruption Monaco shared thoughts on visible in meal planning. describing a shift toward ground proteins as families work around lettuce-dependent meals like tacos.
Grinds Are the Clearest Growth Story
Ground meat is one of the session’s clearest bright spots. DuBois pegged the grind category, spanning beef, chicken, pork and turkey, at roughly $21 billion in annual sales, with younger shoppers driving demand through new blends and flavor inclusions. He expects retailers to start justifying dedicated grind sets.
Premium Isn’t Retreating
Organic beef sales were up 27% year over year, and grass-fed posted steep growth too, concentrated among higher-income, Gen Z and millennial households. Call it the K-shaped economy applied to the meat case: value and premium both gaining while the middle gets squeezed.
Where This Plays Out Live
Gas-price pressure on trips, the produce-to-grind swap, the K-shaped premium split, none of it stays a webinar topic. It’s the same ground AMC’s education program builds on every year, from Roerink’s consumer-trends work with Circana with Power of Meat to shopper insights and protein focus and portion-size research shaping the 2027 program. AMC is where retailers turn numbers like these into shelf-level decisions instead of slide-deck takeaways.
