• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, April 7, 2009

With all of the focus on what people aren't putting in their shopping carts, there's been good news in this economy for some F&B categories, confirms new data from Mintel.

As would be expected, categories being fueled by the recession are primarily basic or comfort foods that can be purchased relatively inexpensively in grocery stores and are easy to prepare at home, notes Mintel senior analyst Bill Patterson.

Bread, sweet spreads, frozen meals, side dishes and coffee have been among the biggest winners, reports the research firm, which re-forecast all of its Oxygen reports for 2008 and 2007 to reflect the past year's unprecedented economic changes.

There's nothing more filling or comforting than bread, and Mintel now estimates that bread sales jumped a hefty 7% last year -- a large increase over its original 2.1% projection. The analysts also predict accelerated growth for this category through 2013.

Sweet spreads -- including peanut butter and jams/jellies, are also on a roll -- in no small part due to the surging popularity of bagged lunches in general and PB&J sandwiches in particular (even with the lingering sales impact of the peanut contamination scare). Mintel estimates that sweet spreads grew 7.5% in 2008, versus an original projection of 3.4%. Furthermore, they expect 5.2% growth this year and cumulative growth of 26% between 2008 and 2013 (also way up from an original 12% five-year projection).

With home-brewing in and $4 lattes out, retail coffee grew at an estimated 6% last year, versus a 2.4% projection. Mintel expects at-home coffee sales to continue strong growth going forward, although the momentum could be slowed to some extent by new competition from inexpensive, café-quality coffees from Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's.

Frozen meals are estimated to have grown 4.5% last year, thanks to their advantages as a convenient, filling family meal solution. Originally, Mintel projected a small decline in growth (-0.3%) for this category.

Side dishes, driven by comfort varieties like mac and cheese, grew 5% instead of the initially projected 2.3%.

While all of these categories should continue to thrive as long as the recession persists, post-recession patterns for some -- such as frozen dinners and side dishes -- remain to be seen, Mintel's analysts point out.