Products using the Whole Grain Stamp continue to play a growing role in supermarket sales. If you’ve been keeping your eyes open in the grocery aisles, you’ve probably observed the proliferation of the Stamp for yourself. But we’ve got more than anecdotal evidence: we’ve got hard data showing the increased sales of Stamped products.

This evidence comes from an organization called SPINS, the leading provider of retail sales data and analytics for the Natural, Organic and Specialty Products industry. SPINS has long tracked the sales of better-for-you products in both natural and conventional channels and now, through a partnership with IRI, they are expanding their tracking to even more outlets; today their numbers cover about 58% of an estimated $81.2 billion in US sales of natural/organic products.

One of the things that SPINS tracks (with our help) is sales of products using the Whole Grain Stamp. In fact, we started working with SPINS in 2010 when they were seeking some way to track the growth of whole grain products in the marketplace. What counts as a whole grain product? they mused to themselves. And the obvious answer was: any product that qualifies for the Whole Grain Stamp.

So Oldways and the Whole Grains Council update SPINS monthly on which products have been approved to use the Stamp, and in return, SPINS shares some of their findings with us. While their data don’t cover every single grocery sale made in America (Whole Foods Market, for instance, isn’t included), we think their latest data make some interesting points about whole grain momentum.

In the 52 weeks ending March 23, 2014, total Stamp product sales reported by SPINS were $1,344,132,565 – yes, more than 1.3 billion dollars! This total was up 2% from the year previous, but some categories were up much more than the overall total. Here are five of the categories with some of the largest increases:

Obviously, some categories did better than others. Offsetting the sizzling categories above were a few on the other end of the scale. Breakfast overall seems to have fallen out of favor, with Frozen Breakfast Foods down 7.10% to $1,779,260, Cold Cereals down 17.56% to $495,479,807, and Hot Cereals down 21.62% to $11,055,873.

Since upwards of 70% of cereal products these days are whole grain, it’s probably safe to assume that consumers aren’t abandoning whole grains to go back to refined grains – they’re simply skipping breakfast or choosing other options to start their day.

The SPINS data can be broken down further into subcategories, and we couldn’t resist looking for our favorites. Sure enough, popcorn is up 128.8%, to nearly $33 million in annual sales. Popcorn may just be the whole grain that everyone likes, even those who think they never eat whole grains! Excuse me, while I stop all this number-geeking to cook up a batch on the stove for my afternoon snack.  (

Cynthia)