Responding to changing consumer tastes and lifestyles, purveyors of cold cuts and deli meats are developing new products and line extensions that play on flavor, form and formulation.
Efforts to shake up the category appear to be paying dividends. According to Information Resources Inc. (IRI) (Chicago), sales of refrigerated, sliced deli meat in the food/drug/mass channels (excluding Wal-Mart) were up 3% for the year ending August 11, 2002, to $3.08 billion. Earlier, the American Meat Institute (AMI) (Arlington, Va.) had reported that total luncheon meat category sales grew 6.4% between October 2000 and October 2001. Also, from 1997 to 2002, sales of refrigerated, non-sliced luncheon meat, primarily sold in delis, rose almost 11%, according to Chicago-based Mintel International Group.