Forward Looking Machine Learning Algorithms
Grocery Retail Intelligence
The best organizations are thinking several moves ahead. This webite is intended to give retailers the insights to actively plan forward and stay one step ahead of the pack
Current Market Trends
CPI FAH has doubled over the last year and is the main reason why grocery sales are much stronger in 2025.
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Units have been on a bit of a roller coaster, significantly increasing in Dec 24 to Feb 25 and then rapidly declining in the next three months. This movement can be explained by lapping weak months and some stockpiling as shoppers anticipated higher prices. The good news is units have hit bottom and we expect will increase over the remaining year.
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June was a good month for sales which increased 2.7% YOY. YTD grocery is up a healthy 3.3%.
Food Inflation
6 Month Outlook
​​The CPI FAH forecast is currently running above the actual values. This is due to elevated Food Manufacturing prices, and is why we expect CPI FAH to move up another 25 basis points over the summer.
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With declining Farm Product prices, we expect Food Manufacturing prices to soften, which should result in food inflation softening in the fall and likely fall in the 2.0% to 2.5% range.​​​
We expect CPI Food-at-Home to increase another 25 basis points over the summer, peaking around 2.5% to 2.75% YOY. Then food inflation will likely decline toward 2.0% to 2.5% toward the end of the year. The black line is the actual values and the colored lines are the forecast for each rolling 6-month forecast.
The CPI Food-at-Home forecast for the next six months is in the 1.9% to 2.8% range. The chances of hitting 4%, which is when units start to soften, looks pretty low. Overall, CPI FAH looks very good for grocery retailers. Not too hot and not too cold.
Grocery Sales
6 Month Outlook
Amidst all of the uncertainty and angst, grocery sales are having a very good year. Up 3.3% YTD and likely coming in around 2.9% for the year, which is much higher than last years 1.7% growth.
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Our initial 2025 grocery forecast, which we did in December 2024, was around 2.6%. so we are looking good. We might even beat our 30 basis point error for our 2024 forecast.​​
The Rolling 6 month forecast is above the actual value and we expect grocery sales to increase in the upcoming months as CPI FAH remains above 2% and units begin to rebound.
The U.S. Grocery Forecast for the next six months is expected to grow between 2.3% and 3.1%. This estimate is based on the green line in the chart to the left.
