Eggnog in October? Why big dairies and grocers want it on shelves sooner

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It was getting late one afternoon this week and the what’s-for-dinner crowd was starting to rummage through a west-end Toronto supermarket. No one was paying much attention to a lone refrigerator with four-dozen cartons of store-brand eggnog in festive shades of red for the classic, and blue for the fat-free version. For an hour that afternoon, no one touched them.

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The question, then, is why on earth eggnog is on sale in October? The drink has for centuries been tied to Christmas and the winter holiday season, but it has begun to creep into stores earlier and earlier during the past few years. Most supermarkets now start selling eggnog a week or two before Thanksgiving, and one major Canadian producer said October represents 15 per cent of annual eggnog sales.

“Really? Why so early?” Brad Fletcher, president of the Village Grocer in Unionville, Ont., asked his team this month when he learned the store was already selling eggnog.

The reason was pretty straightforward.

“Our customers want it. As soon as it’s available, they’re on it. They love it,” Mariella Aiello, the Village Grocer’s veteran product assortment manager, told the Financial Post. “Why not? Why not have eggnog in October? Why not?”

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A growing number of Canadian consumers seem to agree. Brenda Carter, in Cobourg, Ont., puts it in her coffee. Her daughter tipped her to it a few years ago — her daughter even left a carton in Carter’s fridge over Thanksgiving.

“It’s like drinking pumpkin spice coffee, but you’ve made it yourself at home,” she said.

Expanding eggnog sales into autumn, and perhaps even beyond, makes a lot of sense for retailers and producers, since it’s the sort of product that can create sales without taking any away.

One grocer referred to it as an “unplanned purchase” in the sense that customers will put it in their cart, even though it wasn’t on their list, but they won’t sacrifice their other purchases.

The strategy seems to be working. Eggnog sales around Thanksgiving this year boosted the entire dairy category by two per cent at Mike Dean Local Grocer, a chain of five stores in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

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“The dairy companies have made it into a Thanksgiving drink,” said Gordon Dean, the owner of the stores. “Two per cent to a normal person doesn’t seem like a big number. But a sales lift of two per cent in a category to a grocer, that’s moving mountains.”

Dean, who started selling eggnog outside the traditional December holiday period about three years ago, said customers are also willing to spend more on eggnog than they would on regular milk. That’s because eggnog, similar to Pepsi or Clamato, is also a mix for liquor drinks, he said.

“It’s the opposite of chocolate milk. You buy chocolate milk because you want to guzzle it. You buy eggnog because you’ve got somebody coming over,” he said.

And customers who have somebody coming over tend to splurge.

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“It’s something that I get to make a little margin on — far more margin on eggnog than I could make on milk,” Dean said. “After the success here, why would they not try it for some other season?”

Lactalis Canada Inc., the multinational dairy processing giant that makes eggnog under its Beatrice brand name, is forecasting eggnog sales to grow by five per cent this year compared to last, for a total of around two to 2.5 million litres.

All those sales will occur in the final quarter of the year, with 15 per cent in October, 10 per cent in November and the remaining 75 per cent in December.

“The start of the season is getting earlier and earlier,” said Vincent Metz, general manager of Lactalis’ fluid division in Canada.

Still, he isn’t expecting to be able to stretch eggnog sales into summer.

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“From a sensory point of view, I’m not sure this is a product you would enjoy so much during the warm months,” he said.

It was not warm this week in Toronto, but it wasn’t that cold either. Stanley Mandarich was shopping at the west-end Toronto supermarket and his wife pointed to the eggnog in the fridge. He took a carton of the classic.

“I guess I don’t see why not,” he said of the purchase. “I was perfectly fine thinking that October was a good month to have eggnog in.”

The next day, he had some with brandy. It felt friendly, and familiar, maybe a little decadent.

“I might not have it every day,” he said. “I’m not sure how long it’s good for but I’m sure we’ll use it up before it expires.”

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