by Chas Bonner
Virtually every food company is carefully watching consumer habits to find the latest secrets of food appeal. What most are discovering is that price is number one concern of grocery shoppers today, given not only the scares of the current economic environment, but also given that conspicuous consumption is “out” and frugality is “in.”
The biggest food sellers are not the well-known food retailers like Albertsons, Shop-Rite, Publix, or Food Lion, but rather the Wal-Mart SuperCenters, Costco’s, and the BJ’s Wholesales of the world. Even Dollar Stores are booming.
Nonetheless, every consumer wants foods that are interesting, even if inexpensive. Food manufacturers are bringing out far more new products, almost 10,000 in 2010, or about 2500 more new products than 2009. Furthermore, consumers themselves are adding interesting spices, rubs, vinegars, oils, etc. to their food to keep it exciting, and not necessarily buying it fully prepared by the manufacturer.
There are other groups of consumers focused on locally grown, organic, and sustainable agriculture foods (however one might define that). Fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds are important to that crowd. They are also looking for low energy-intensity foods, ones that are not trucked all the way across the continent. The word “locavore” applies.
Even when dining out, diners are looking for interesting meals, and restaurants are serving more seasoned dishes, using chipotle, cinnamon, cilantro, jalapeno and many other “flavor of the month” spices.
After watching and understanding these trends, it tells us that today’s consumer wants inexpensive food, but exciting when eaten. Hence, to a producer these trends signify that we must continue to be low cost producers with products needed by the marketplace instead of a perceived “wanted” by the marketplace. But we also cannot go to sleep, assuming marketplaces to be static; when times return to “normal,” convenience will again be of paramount importance.
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