Monthly Shipping and Marketing Report | March 2024

Council Update

Council Meeting: The next Council meeting will be held onTuesday, February 27 in Las Vegas prior to the North American Mushroom Conference. If you are interested in attending theCouncil meeting, please let us know so we can be sure you are accommodated.

Exemption Applications: The exemption applications for the 2024 calendar year have been mailed/emailed to those who are currently exempt. If you do not receive an application and would like to apply for an exemption, please email [email protected] or download an application here.

Mushroom Council Calls for Nominations

A call for nominations for positions beginning January 1, 2025, is now open. Completed nomination forms must be emailed or postmarked no later than May 1, 2024. The regions with positions available are:

Region 1 (All states except CA & PA) – One, one-year term (2025-2025)
Region 2 (PA) – Two, three-year terms (2025-2027)
Region 3 (CA) – One, three-year term

Mushroom growers have ideas, skills, experiences, and perspectives that would benefit the industry; be a voice for your industry by becoming part of the Council.

Eligibility: All producers, who produce, on average, over 500,000 pounds of mushrooms annually for fresh use and are not exempt may nominate one or more candidates, provided that they produce within the specified region. To qualify as a candidate or to nominate a candidate, an individual must be a producer. Producer means any person engaged in the production of mushrooms who owns or shares the ownership and risk of loss of such mushrooms and who produces, on average, over 500,000 pounds of mushrooms per year for the fresh market and not exempt from paying assessments.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Mushroom Council encourage all eligible producers, including women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities to participate and seek nomination.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Shipment Summary

Download Current Charts

Channel Highlights

CONSUMER

February:

Mushroom Monday campaign is in full swing –
- Members can use a messaging guide and assets to join the program
  - Growers are encouraged to use these assets on their own channels
- For Social Media, the Council partnered with ThatCrazySubGuy to highlight Jersey Mike’s Grilled Portabella Mushroom Sandwich
  - Click here to see the post
  - Check the Council’s feed every Monday for a new post highlighting either a recipe or Food Service operator
- The program has been highlighted in trade media

March:

Mushroom Loyalist campaign has kicked off –
- The Council will target its most loyal shoppers in an all-new multimedia advertising campaign aimed at encouraging those who already love mushrooms to purchase even more.
- Click here for an overview of the target audience and strategy
- Click here for access to the program assets and information, including:
  - Streaming Ads, digital ads, recipes, and lifestyle photography
Mushroom Monday program is continuing:
- There will be a Consumer Enewsletter, along with Nutrition enewsletter with a toolkit for RDs to discuss MM messaging.
- Check into the Mushroom Council’s social feeds to see more consumer influencers and posts highlighting recipes and Food Service operators

MUSHROOMS IN SCHOOLS

February:

Shared recipes and resources about National Nutrition Month and National School Breakfast Week. Like/comment/share via the links below:
Highlighted Schools that Incorporate mushrooms on their menu. Like/comment/Share
- Facebook
- X (Twitter)

March:

Between National School Breakfast Week and National Nutrition Month, plan for both a delicious and educational month – with mushrooms, of course! The School Breakfast Program provides 12 million nutritious breakfasts to hungry children nationwide every day. Mushrooms in Schools has recipes, resources, and marketing materials for schools and daycare centers to engage students this month. Share them with your sales teams to get involved.
Mushrooms in Schools has many nutrition education resources for all age ranges of children. For a quick resource to share out, use our blog which highlights key activities in March that partners can incorporate mushrooms and our resources easily.

Marketing Summary

Notable Highlights for December

Facebook spend was down in comparison to last year, due to a decreased emphasis on FYIS.
Our exponential growth MOM across social media was related to a higher paid advertising investment
Promoting simple and easy recipes continues to perform well, this is a simple way for mushroom lovers to add one more mushroom to their plate.
Pinterest is our leading traffic driver to the website both from the paid and organic perspective. We will continue to push Pinterest more this year to increase our site traffic.

*YouTube engagement metrics have changed. Digital metrics are constantly evolving, so we created our own updated Engagement metrics (comments + shares + likes + dislikes + subscribers lost + subscribers gained)

Topline Report

Tracker Highlights – Period ending 02/25/2024

Find the latest retail performance insights covering the weeks ending February 25th, 2024 with an enhanced set of retailers covered. In addition to ALDI now being in the data, eight regional chains now share point-of-sale data. Come April, our universe will expand once more for an increasingly comprehensive and accurate reading on the marketplace. All historic time periods have been updated in the plug & plug powerpoint and data file.

Some major February findings:

Consumer confidence backslid a bit in February although the general sentiment remained elevated from the fall of 2023. This coincided with more meals being prepared at home in February.
The produce department as a whole is emerging as one of the stronger perimeter departments.
Mushroom volume sales at retail remained down year-on-year in the four (-4.%) and 52 weeks (-3.0%) ending 2/25.
The typical sales patterns held were seen with the quad-week period showing the first decline compared to the prior four weeks of the year after sales building all throughout the fall.

Download your copy of the quick two-page summary, the plug and play PowerPoint ready for use, and the in-depth Excel data file.