Half-a-billion dollars sold! (Source: Food Dive / Smucker’s)
1) Seems like the days of trampling random 5-year-olds to get your hands on an Xbox may be moving behind us. In-store traffic at retail stores on Black Friday was down 28.3% from 2019 levels.
2) Prices for Christmas trees will be around 10%-30% higher than usual this year. A little over 10 years ago, during the recession, struggling Christmass tree farms reduced plantings — and now, years later, we have fewer Christmas trees.
3) Unbelievable. Unstoppable. Uncrustables. Smucker’s Uncrustables absolutely crust it this past year, selling ~$500m of their crustless sandwiches. The company forecasts $1B in annual Uncrustables net sales within the next 5 years.
4) Prefab is looking fab. After shipments of manufactured homes dipped throughout the 2000s, numbers are on their way back up. There were at least 104k manufactured houses shipped so far this year, with an average cost of $87k.
5) A rare Colonial New England coin minted in 1652 and recently discovered in a candy tin sold for $350k+ at an auction this past weekend. The coin’s owner is a descendant of William Wentworth, an early settler of New England.
