Sales of natural cheese slices are growing at breakneck speed, or at least they are outpacing other forms of cheese.
Looking at the top 10 brands of natural slices, nearly all brands, including private label, made considerable strides in the 52 weeks leading up to Nov. 27. The overall category rang up $620 million, or an 11.1% jump from the prior year (8.9% by unit). These figures represent supermarkets, drugstores and mass merchandisers, but do not include Wal-Mart. Quarterly data for natural slices, (not shown here) shows that the overall category experienced double-digit growth, or close to it in each quarter going back to early 2004.