In their March 26 “COVID-19 Impact, Consumer Spending Tracker for MULOC Retailers US, UK, France, Italy, NZ” report — the latest in a series of weekly reports — Chicago-based market research firm IRI and partner Boston Consulting Group show that U.S. retail dairy purchases were up 57.8% during the week ending March 15, 2020, in comparison to the same time period in 2019. For all tracked consumer packaged goods categories, IRI pointed to an inflection point in the week of March 1, when significant stockpiling began, and a significant uptick accounting for 1.5 times the normal weekly sales for the week ending March 15.

Seeing the biggest jump within the U.S. retail dairy segment was powdered milk, which posted a 319.2% increase in sales the week ending March 15 over the year-ago figure. Sales of natural shredded cheese climbed 77.0% during the same timeframe, while sales of refrigerated whole milk and skim/lowfat milk rose 47.2% and 46.7%, respectively. Sales of refrigerated yogurt, meanwhile, were up 41.7%.