Analysis of long-term market trends shows that for the first time in 2017 Australia’s two largest supermarkets captured more than 50% of Australia’s $13 billion+ fresh meat market between them.

Market leader Woolworths Group with a 26.5% share, up 1.1% points since 2016, and Coles Group with a 24.3% share, up 2% points, had a combined share of the fresh meat market larger than all other retail outlets including rival supermarkets Aldi and IGA, butchers, markets, other supermarkets and other non-supermarkets combined.

Both Australian supermarket giants have enjoyed stronger growth in the fresh meat market over the past year than rival Aldi which now has a 9.6% share of the fresh meat market, up 0.9% in a year – although all three have clearly taken substantial market share from traditional butchers.

Ten years ago butchers and markets had nearly a third (32%) of Australia’s fresh meat market. Today this is just under a quarter (24%) of the fresh meat market is now held by butchers and markets.

In the last 12 months fresh meat market share for butchers and markets dropped 3% points. This is steepest drop of any time period in the last decade.

These results are from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey of over 50,000 people per annum, including over 12,000 grocery buyers.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says Australia’s increasingly competitive fresh meat market is squeezing the market share of the traditional Australian butcher:

“Australia’s ‘Big Two’ supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles now capture over 60% of Australia’s $100b+ grocery market. In recent years the Big Two have been moving to consolidate their market shares in various fresh food markets including fresh fruit & veg, fresh meat, fresh bread, fresh deli and fresh seafood,” she said

“In just the past year Coles and Woolworths achieved a milestone, capturing a majority of the fresh meat market for the first time and now hold 50.8% of Australia’s fresh meat market between them. Woolworths’ fresh meat market share of Woolworths has increased 1.1% points over the past year to 26.5% while Coles has continued a decade long-trend by increasing its market share by 2% to 24.3%.

Australian fresh meat market 2016 v. 2017

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, January 2016 – December 2016, n=8,301, January 2017 – December 2017, n=8,691. Base: Last 7 day fresh meat purchasers aged 14+ weighted to Australian households.