Food Marketing Data

2016

October

2016/10/10 Per the president of the General Mills cereal division, RTE cereal is in 90% of all households and 94% of millennial households.  Millennials eat cereal as a snack as well as a breakfast.

September

2016/09/09 US home delivered meal kit business is $1.5B.  Hershey’s partners with Chef’d to offer dessert kits that satisfy our indulgent cravings.

2016/09/11 Marketplace Weekend long and short segment (at the beginning of the show) includes a long for meal delivery kits (3:30 – 5:30).  “nicely packaged meals that arrive at your doorstep in cardboard boxes”  Reference Hershey’s and Chef’d partnership.  “$5B industry in next decade.”  “…selling an experience and not just dinner.”  “…spending on experience [cooking a meal] is a valuable thing.”  Actual experience: not always as convenient as advertised.

May

2016/05 Amazon announces private label food.

2016/05/06 NFM Free-From Webinar

March

2016/03/25 Marketplace Weekend includes a segment (35:50 – 41:10) on Maple, a NYC prepared meal delivery service.  (Maple has been getting a lot of buzz in part due to its chef creds (Momofuku founder David Chang).)  In particular, at 35:50 note the comments about curation and finding that consumers respond better to a limited range of choices.  An earlier Buzzfeed post echoes the limited menu comment and also mentions the “small, separate compostable boxes with folded tops”.  January 2016 Grub Hub post also mentions the compostable (sugarcane) containers and highlights the streamlined choices.  Interesting that their customers’ preferences vary based in part on the day of the week.

A separate Marketplace Weekend segment talks about brotailers.  Companies such as Chubbies are using apparel targeted at a very specific male demographic as the foundation for a social media empire; value creation is in the company’s content on various sites.

2016/03/23 A Marketplace segment on a drop off in funding for food delivery services does not bode well for the likes of Instacart.

February

2016/02/16 BakeMag.com article on “direct-to-door delivery” covers trends in various types of food-to-home delivery services.  QSR = quick service restaurant.  Traditional QSR pizza delivery is on the decline; non-pizza restaurant delivery has grown 33% since 2012 (in the US) – grown to 6M (non-pizza) deliveries in 2015.  UberEATS and Amazon Prime Now will spur further growth.  ‘Off-premise food service’ will continue to grow faster than overall restaurant growth for the next decade.  In-home meal kits range from “cook from scratch” to “assemble a meal”; they are a smaller market than off-premise food service delivery.

2016/02/11 Prepared Foods article on ‘free from‘ (allergen-friendly) trends.  The list of ‘free from’ allergens includes: gluten, wheat, peanut, soy, tree nut, dairy, lactose, casein, egg, fish, shellfish, gelatin, sesame, sulfites, MSG, and potato.  In the first half of 2015, 21% of milk alternatives were explicitly soy free.  “40% of Europeans, 42% of Asians and 45% of Americans believe that gluten can cause digestive problems for the majority of consumers. This figure is in strong contrast with scientific research that estimates the proportion of the population suffering from gluten related disorders to be in the 6-10% range (Brouns et al., Journal of Cereal Science, 58 (2013) 209-215).”  Some GF product launches in 2015 came out under the Paleo banner.  Paleo product launches: 21 in 2013, 141 in 2014, and over 265 in 2015.

NFM 2/16 email:

2015

November

FoodEngineering 2015 Nov 13 “Millennials and the food industry“:

94% of Americans snack daily

Millennials 21 – 38 / Non-millennials >38

• 43% don’t trust large food manufacturers vs. 18% of non-millennials
• 74% wish food companies were more transparent vs. 69% of non-millennials
• 59% will stop buying an unethical brand
• 52% prefer a snack to a traditional meal
• “seek foods that will keep them full and energized and are convenient and fun to eat”
• 62% consider themselves foodies
• 50% say it is important to keep within a food budget vs. 61% of non-millennials
• 39% primarily buy their groceries online vs. 31% of all buyers in 2015 (up from 19% in 2014)

October

68% of American adults take dietary supplements.  High percentages have confidence in dietary supplements, especially vitamins and minerals.  Natural Foods Merchandiser article published 2015 October 23.

Highlights of Today’s Specialty Food Consumer 2015 report by the Specialty Food Association and Mintel:

consumerreport2015_8pgs-1

• Men have surpassed women as specialty food consumers – biggest cohort is male, 25 – 44 years old, and Hispanic
• Convenience is a priority
• iGeneration 18 – 20 years; Millenials 21 – 38 years
• Chocolate is the 3rd most purchased segment; sweet baked goods is 5th
• Amongst Millenials, the ‘Nuts, seeds, dried fruits, and vegetables’ segment is 6th, ‘Salty snacks’ is 8th, ‘Snack bars’ is 10th, and ‘Cereal’ is 12th.
• Indulgence is still a big draw even though quality and healthfulness are also important

June

The FoodBusinessNews article “Diet drink or fitness fuel?” discusses consumer confusion over weight management and fitness.  The May 2015 Food and Health Survey by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) indicates that a quarter (55% of 57%) of Americans are overweight or obese (per B.M.I. calculations) but still rate their health as very good or excellent.  Further, most (84%) of all Americans are either trying to maintain or lose weight (by changes in diet (51%) and physical activity (50%) – but don’t like the term “weight management” and are making less of an effort to follow through on these changes; 48%, down from 60% in 2013, said they are trying to control the healthfulness of the foods and beverages they consume and weight management efforts have dropped from 64% to 56%.  Ingredion tries to address weight management with satiating fiber “including a viscous hydrocolloid and a whole grain corn flour rich in resistant starch” that satiates via “starch fermentation in the colon” and by prolonging absorption thereby increasing gastrointestinal viscosity which reduces calorie consumption.  [PEG – I wonder how starch fermentation and increased gastrointestinal viscosity translates into reality.]  A ~May 2015 study by the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom compared consumption of a fiber-enhanced smoothie for breakfast vs. a non-active control.  The study found that the study participants who had had the enhanced smoothie ate relatively less at lunch and dinner and reported less hunger; a higher amount of fiber led to consumption of even fewer calories at later meals.

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