Plus: IRI Sees Return To Parity Between At-Home And Away-From Home Food Sales. Late in the first quarter of this year, US soft drink retail sales begin to cycle the impact of pandemic-related pantry loading last year. To get a baseline understanding of the extent to which elevated retail sales are sticking now that pandemic lockdowns are easing, BD compared data from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2019 (instead of 2020).