"SPINS 30" Pricing Index
Updated through Period 9, 2009 (four weeks ending 9/05/09)
How
does the regular price of an identical set of items compare in the Natural versus Conventional Channels? To find out, SPINS selected 30 popular grocery items to include in a 'SPINS 30' market basket and we are monitoring their total cost to see how it changes on an annual and period-to-period basis in each of the channels.
Basket: A diverse group of 30 items, of which 13 are Organic and 17 are Natural, including beverages, entrees, snacks, dairy, cereal, and frozen and refrigerated goods.
Methodology: Regular price totals are trended over four-week periods using Total US SPINSscan Natural and SPINSscan Conventional Food store data.
Total Basket Cost: Natural's price advantage increases modestly.
The total cost of the SPINS 30 Market Basket is slightly lower in the Natural Channel in the latest four week period ending 9/5/2009 (SPINS P9), with the difference at only 0.4% (vs. 0.3% last period).
Annual Change: Year ago inflation declines to 1.0% higher in Natural vs. Conventional Food.
Prices have been rising at a faster pace on average in the Natural channel over the past year: 4.5% versus 3.5% in the Conventional Food Channel. These values are down 1.1% and down 0.7%, respectively, since last period. Trends have become more favorable as the impact of the 2008 commodity price run-ups is increasingly reflected in year ago prices.
Year-to-date Compounded Inflation: Rates identical to last period at 2.4% in Natural and 2.1% in Conventional Food.
Period-to-period inflation in the Conventional Food Channel was +0.2% in P9 (vs. -0.1% in P8). Year to date, the channel is experiencing a 2009 compounded inflation rate of 2.1% (same as last period). In the Natural Channel, period-to-period inflation was clocked at +0.1% in P9 (vs. +0.3% in P8). The compounded 2009 YTD annual inflation rate in the Natural Channel is now 2.4% (identical to last period).
Data incorporates 2009 SPINSscan Natural Restatement.
SPINS will continue to monitor the basket, so stay tuned. We will update the basket every period.