数据解读：新冠疫情如何影响美国食品企业销售？

After years of slow growth or even stagnation, the COVID-19 pandemic brought a significant sales boost to U.S. food companies. However, not all companies benefited—some suffered major losses due to issues with sales, production, and consumer perception.

Food Dive analyzed the earnings reports of several U.S. publicly traded food companies over the past eight quarters to assess the pandemic's impact on sales and growth. The charts below compare sales from the most recent four quarters (at least partially during pandemic lockdowns) with the same period a year earlier (pre-pandemic).

The comparison shows significant increases or decreases in sales across companies, but overall sales patterns remained largely stable. For example, most companies that had higher summer sales before the pandemic maintained the same seasonal trends during the pandemic, but with higher absolute sales figures. However, this pattern was not universal. Coca-Cola, for instance, saw a decline in summer sales last year—despite summer typically being its peak season—likely related to the closure of large event venues.

Although the following contains several similar charts, each chart uses an independent scale to more clearly illustrate the sales change characteristics of each company.

Quarterly sales comparison of major food companies (pre- and post-pandemic)

The charts below are based on each company's quarterly earnings data, comparing sales from the four quarters before the pandemic with the four quarters during the pandemic. Data sources are each company's public financial reports, with specific periods varying slightly due to differences in fiscal years.