Food and beverage sector performance a mixed story: 2024 mid-year update

As we approach the last quarter of 2024, we look back on our 2024 Food and Beverage Report to see how food and beverage manufacturing has actually performed so far this year. As well we provide forecasts for the remainder of 2024 and early 2025 and highlight trends to watch going forward.

Sales update

FCC Economics continues to expect sales to fall in 2024, although not as much as what we had estimated in the Food and Beverage Report earlier this year. We’re now expecting a 0.7% drop in 2024 nominal sales, i.e. the value of sales measured in dollars. Our original estimate was more pessimistic at -1.4%.

The food and beverage manufacturing sectors had contrasting fortunes in the first half of the year. Nominal sales increased 1.5% for food manufacturing and declined 6.6% for beverage manufacturing compared to the same period in 2023 (Table 1). The drop in beverage manufacturing was even more severe in real terms i.e., after removing the effects of inflation, with volumes down 11.6%.

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