Meal Planning In The Supermarket Aisle: What Consumers Are Telling Us
This presentation at the 2009 annual meeting of the National Institute of Animal Agriculture covers recent consumer research relating to meal planning, with implications for persuading people to try vegetarian (or vegan) meals and ingredients.
A survey by the National Pork Board identified consumer shopping habits:
- 46% of shoppers say their biggest dinner dilemma is figuring out what to cook each day.
- 58% shop without a list.
- Many shoppers lack skill, confidence, or experience to try something new.
- 87% prepare the same recipe 3.4 times per month.
- Shoppers complain about using the “same old ingredients in the same old way.” They want help in-aisle.
Furthermore, according to the Journal of Advertising Research (2008), the typical supermarket offers 40,000 items, while the typical household buys about 400 distinct items in a year, and they buy only half of those items regularly.
The top 10 retail food SKUs represent an estimated 22% of sales, showing the concentration of lack of creativity among meal planners:
- 4 SKUs of chicken breast = 11%
- 4 SKUs of ground beef = 8%
- 1 SKU of round roast = 2%
- 1 SKU of London broil = 1%
According to the National Grocers Association 2009 Consumer Panel Survey, consumers are most concerned about the following characteristics of the the food they eat:
- Desire to be healthy (22%)
- Fat content (14%)
- Chemical additives (11%)
- Salt (9%)
- Sugar content (7%)
- Calories (7%)
- Food/Nutritional Value (6%)
- Freshness (5%)
- Balanced diet (4%)
- Carbohydrates (3%)
- Cholesterol (2%)
- Fiber content (1%)
- Vitamin/mineral content (1%)
- Preservatives (1%)