A boost for the snack food industry? The Super Bowl provides it … and then some.
Each year, food sales soar during Super Bowl week. It’s a nice economic boost for all those companies that make tortilla chips, pretzels, dips and potato chips. The big game helps grocery stores, warehouse clubs, convenience stores and pizza places, too.
And this year? This boost in sales is even more welcome. You can bet that the number of Super Bowl parties across the country will be on the rise this weekend after many hosts cancelled their in-person events last year because of COVID-19. And the more parties, the better it is for the companies that make all those salty snacks and those who sell them.
How much of an impact does the Super Bowl have? SNAC International, the trade association of the snacking industry, wanted to find out. To do this, the association commissioned new data from IRI.
The data compared 2021 U.S. shopping data from Super Bowl week with the prior week. In no surprise, U.S. shoppers bought a lot more snacks during Super Bowl week last year than they did the week before.
According to the numbers:
The sale of tortilla chips rose 26.5 percent during Super Bowl week when compared to the week before.
Potato chip sales rose 12.2 percent.
Pretzel sales jumped 9.2 percent.
Refrigerated dips? Sales of this Super Bowl snack mainstay jumped 33.3 percent.
Even pork rind sales jumped, increasing by 7.6 percent during Super Bowl week.
IRI found that total U.S. snack food sales jumped 12.5 percent to $487 million during Super Bowl week 2021. Americans eat 112 million pounds of snacks on Super Bowl Sunday, which SNAC International points out is the equivalent of 270 jumbo jets.
This marks the fourth year that SNAC has studied consumer spending on snacks for the Super Bowl, with U.S. spending on snacks rising from $370 million to $487 million during that time.
