Deli sales do show an increase from September on, with a big increase at the start of December. So they may be a better indicator.
I wonder if the Dec spike is related to all the Christmas parties that take place in that month.
When I delivered for Dominos Pizza in the early 1990s, we had to schedule a couple more drivers during the beginning of the month. Each month, our sales would temporarily spike when the welfare checks were delivered.
I’ve got a killer recipe for the pope’s nose. We should join forces.
I wonder what percentage of chicken wings are sold through the big chain restaurants. I can believe that it’s a higher than normal portion. In that case, the spikes could correspond to the restaurant chains placing monthly orders, and that overshadowing grocery store sales.
Another consideration is the reporting period itself. I really doubt that the retailers are providing daily wing sales reports.
If the monthly sales data is due by the middle of the month you might expect to see the sawtooth pattern in reported data. I strongly doubt that everyone is rushing out to buy wings in the middle of the month or that sales data distinguishes Monday from Wednesday, there is another answer.
Or what **Elmer J. Fudd **said.
Hmmm, what else could be sending men scrambling out of the house once a month and into pubs and sports bars…
The sawtooth might also be at least partially explained by the fact that wings are usually frozen, so a restaurant or store can order a month’s supply at a time. After four weeks frozen stuff can get nasty.
I can’t cite this without identifying my employer, but I can testify that chicken wings do spike at the beginning of each month, and the spike is definitely related in part to the purchases of food stamp recipients.
And about 11% of “food at home” purchases are made using food stamps (almost universally debit cards now). And yes there is a very skewed distribution of purchases made using food stamps, even by the exact same customers. About 15% of US residents are on food stamps, though most of them do not receive nearly enough to buy all the food they need. I work in Finance, but was seconded onto a project team that did some detailed research into food demand timing and sources of income. The food stamp programs are moving away from first of the month disbursements, but there are a lot of people who get checks on or about the first of the month. Pensions, social security, disability, etc. Federal employees get paid on the 1st and 15th, so they add to the first-of-the-month spike in food sales as well but only in the DC area.
:dubious: I can’t speak for all federal employees, but I get paid every two weeks, regardless of where those dates fall with respect to the month.
Are federal employees in the DC area paid differently from federal employees throughout the rest of the country? Or does my agency (EPA) pay its employees differently than the rest of the federal government?
When I lived in DC and worked for the Federal Government, I was paid every 2 weeks (26 pay periods per year, not 24).
I think the 1st and 15th paydays apply only to the military.
According to the press release that the chart in the OP came from, the data was only for supermarket and grocery store sales. So unless restaurant chains are ordering from supermarkets, their orders aren’t shown in the graph.
It’s not clear from the graph how often the data is sampled. Given the very straight lines, I would assume that it is relatively infrequently and that the lines just connect the dots. In that case the saw tooth pattern might just be random data. Humans are great at seeing patterns that aren’t really there.
I will now be going to sensitivity classes for laughing at this. I’m sending the bill to you.
I must be mistaken. It must be some other population I was thinking of. I’m going from memory.