Cheesecakes lost ground in in-store bakeries during the past year as consumers turned to more healthful or affordable alternatives for indulgence. While individual desserts increased more than 7 percent, cheesecakes decreased in dollar sales compared to a year ago.

Nationally, cheesecake sales accounted for 6.5 percent of total cake sales and 1.8 percent of bakery department dollar sales during the 52 weeks ending May 29, 2010, which was consistent with the previous year.

Cheesecakes decreased 2 percent in dollar sales, while the bakery department grew 1.3 percent in year-over-year sales. Cheesecake averaged $177 per store per week, down from $181 last year. Sales peaked during the weeks of Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's, as cheesecake is a popular holdiay dessert. The category saw the greatest sales the week of Christmas, at $417 per store.

Cheesecakes declined in year-over-year sales in all regions, except the South. The South region saw a 1.4 percent increase in cheesecake dollar sales, which may have been driven by a small increase in distribution. All regions were consistent in cheesecake contribution to the bakery department. The West region saw the greatest decrease in contribution with a decline of 0.2 percent.

Although the East region experienced the greatest dollar sales, with an average of $222 per store per week, the contribution to total bakery was the lowest among the four regions at 1.6 percent. The West and South regions outpaced the 1.8 percent national average contribution to the bakery department with 2.2 percent and 2 percent contributions, respectively.

Nationally, assorted/variety cheesecakes led sales in the subcategory with 42.4 percent dollar share. Plain cheesecake posted the next largest contribution to total cheesecakes with 23.3 percent of dollar share, followed by other cheesecake at 14.3 percent, strawberry cheesecakes at 12.1 percent and other fruit cheesecake at 7.9 percent of dollar share. Assorted/variety cheesecake was up 4.7 percent over the previous year's category share. Strawberry cheesecake also improved its share by 3.8 percent. Plain cheesecake was nearly flat, losing 1.3 percent share, but other fruit cheesecakes and other cheesecakes each lost nearly 20 percent share.

This sales review, provided by the Perishables Group FreshFacts^® powered by Nielsen, includes supermarket in-store bakery scanner data results from the 52 weeks ending May 29, 2010, representing more than 63.3 percent of the national supermarket ACV share. For more information, contact the Perishables Group's Kelli Beckel by phone: 773/929-7013, or e-mail: KelliB@perishablesgroup.com.