To satisfy consumer demand for fresh products, ever increasing numbers of retailers are presenting large deli departments in their stores. The importance of the deli department is growing; it covers categories such as prepared foods, meat, cheese and beverages. Often, a fresh bakery section is included.
The product departments’ service deli and deli/self service combined captured a share of 4.71 percent of total supermarket sales in 2011. Total deli department sales amounted to about 19.79 billion U.S. dollars in 2012.
As a single category, prepared foods drove the deli department growth during 2012. The most important subcategory within prepared foods was prepared chicken with weekly retail sales of 3,502 U.S. dollars per store.
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