Food Ingredients
Consumers and their supplements, part two
In my previous blog post, I mentioned some information regarding interesting new findings on dietary supplements; cautionary findings in particular. Potential risks are more understood these days, tipping the risk/benefit scale from “it can’t hurt” to “maybe I better think twice.”
Has that message reached the “common consumer”? Are people really concerned about potential side effects of their daily intake of vitamins?
Survey says, “yes”.
Consumers and their supplements, part one
Europeans eat nutritious food. Americans pop pills. Or, that’s what some of my industry friends on the continent like to think. Are we really that bad? A quick fix for a bad diet?
I’ve been a supplement taker on and off for years, albeit randomly. Someone sneezes on the train, grab some Vitamin C. Have leg cramps, reach for the Calcium. I’m not sure what prompted a month of sipping noni juice – maybe I was feeling exotic.
I’ll be speaking this year at Focus on the Future , and wanted to “supplement” my company’s consumer food behavior survey with one on vitamins/minerals/herbals. What do people look for? Are they loyal to a brand? Are they faddists or do they swear by particular nutrients? And does anything worry them about taking supplements? Continue reading
Dissecting Thanksgiving
Hopefully everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend. So, what did you feast upon? 
Thanks to the ability to monitor online trends, we can pick apart not only what we cooked (minute by minute, it turns out) but how the digital revolution we’re all experiencing gets played out on the most American of holidays. A look at the top 50 search terms on “how to make” for Thanksgiving food items and their patterns, state-by-state, is a blast. Take a look!
Older, Wiser and way more Demanding
As part of the baby-boom generation that grew up rather simply – that is, not thinking too hard about food or even knowing the right questions to ask – I’m thrilled to finally have the 24/7 access to information that defines today’s world.Whole Foods, Meijer, Trader Joe’s and HyVee as sources of information.
Colman Brohan Davis’s recent Food Shopping Survey 2009 turned up some interesting insights about my peers. Relative to the other segments measured (Women 
20 – 25 and Men), we are heavier readers and tv watchers, looking to books, magazines and the tube to gather information and form opinions. And we’ve avidly embraced life online, particularly search and mobile. We love exploring blogs, postings and sites that provide insight and data about food. We have fun sharing our opinions.
Here are some highlights of our research:
Oh, to be so Young and Savvy
It’s been a while since I was part of the 20 – 25 year old market segment and I recall having a “devil may care” approach to food buying and consumption. Sure, I cared somewhat about calories, but actually finding caloric content info wasn’t easy. Forget about RDAs and percentage of fat vs. sugar vs. proteins. Fiber? Don’t think so.
I just had lunch with my cousin, a college freshman, who filled me in on her eating habits. She spurned the school meal plan, opting to cook for herself. She shops at Whole Foods almost exclusively, eats organic when she can, doesn’t mix carbs with anything else and has pretty much a hands-off attitude about sugar. Turns out, she fits the profile of the Young Women (20-25 year old) segment of our recent Food Shopping Survey 2009. We asked respondents to rank purchase considerations among 12 criteria; then probed into label-reading. Here are a few highlights:
- The overall #1 criteria is Taste, but for this group Price is a close second. Which, interestingly, often means buying simple, fresh ingredients rather than prepared, packaged foods.
- Young Women were not as concerned about preservatives or fiber as their “more mature” female counterparts.
- More than any other group, Young Women were more influenced by Packaging, yet paid less notice to Brand Name. This comes as an expression of their curiosity in exploring items, general “newness” of shopping independently, and the attendant lack of brand loyalty.
- Young Women (and Young Men) are more interested in organic and fair trade than any other segment.
- A lot of information is derived online as well as through friends, including those on Facebook and other social networks. Some of the favorite online sources cited are: Hungry Girl, fitday, Jillian Michaels, wholefoods, idealist and epicurious. And two favorite magazines are Fitness and Health.
Here are a few verbatim comments which reflect a collective point of view:
- “I’m eating less healthy now that I’m in college and away from my parents. But I’m determined to turn that around.”
- “I just got married and my husband is obsessed with saving money. Still, we buy good, whole foods. No more pre-packaged junk for us.”
- “I buy more ‘real’ food, meaning not processed. If I buy pre-packaged foods, I look for ‘real’ingredients, those I recognize as food.”
-“I’m more aware of the effects that highly processed foods have not only on people, but on the economy and sustainability of the earth.”
- “I just returned from two years living in France, where I learned to shop almost daily for fresh foods … a great habit.”
-“I’m not interested in brand names. I’m reading labels, cutting out things with added sugar.”
-“I’ve given up dairy.”
- “I became a vegetarian.”
-“I’m purchasing from local/smaller grocery stores. Also looking at what is in my food. For things like bread, it’s ridiculous that it would contain HFCS (as an example).”
- “SEO is a great thing. You can Google anything and the information will pop up. I do this the first time I buy just about anything – that is, go online to find what’s in it.”
To sum it up, these are the views of our emerging food buyer, in her first few years of meal planning independence. Maybe she’s in college right now, or newly married, but soon she’s likely to be buying for a family. We know a lot about how she selects food and engages with brands, but few ingredient companies are using this intelligence wisely. There’s a lot of “if we build it, they will come” mentality still rampant in b2b marketing. Ask yourself … do you understand this consumer? And how can you join the conversation?
Who Knew that Men were so Evolved?
I know that my husband’s food buying habits have changed dramatically over the years, but a focus group of one isn’t exactly statistically valid. What a shocker, reviewing the results … and comments … from our Food Shopping Survey 2009 which had over 200 adult responders. Men accounted for 32% of the base. The two other groups we segmented are Young Women (ages 20 – 25) and Mid-Age Women (26 – 49).
Of the variety of 12 items to rank in importance when buying food, of course Taste is #1 across the board. Cost is 2nd overall, but for men, it’s 4th. As true with the collective group, men have become label readers. Men of “a certain age” (older than 30) care about calories. In fact over 91% of men 30+ look at calorie and fat content. Only 60% of men under 30 bother with calories or fat. Really, men care about calories? Wow, watch a few Burger King commercials and you’ve got to wonder. Some of the other interesting insights:
- Young men buy more organics than older men.
- Men care more about protein and less about fiber.
- Men care much less about brand name than women do.
- Men gravitated more to organics than women.
- Men are online, reviewing blogs and websites (epicurious ranked high as did caloriecounter.com, wholefoods.com and company/brand sites) at about the same level women are … that is, quite often.
Comments clustered around some key subject areas:
- Reading labels: “I’ve become more aware of content and finally learned how to read a label.”
- Origin of food: “I’m much more concerned about origin of food due to recent contamination issues” and “I want to know where ingredients come from. If I can’t find out easily, I don’t buy the product”.
- Organics: “I’m more interested in organic products and am spending less money but eating better.”
- Buying local: “’We’ve switched as much as possible to local farmers markets. Purchase as little processed food as we can”.
- Food education: “With more information on effects of chemicals in food, I’m steering away from certain types of ingredients”.
- Sustainability: “I’m purchasing higher quality food and let factors like the company’s environmental considerations come into the picture”.
Means to track these markers are ever increasing. As the nation’s largest supermarkets develop and employ rating systems such as Guiding Stars, NuVal and Nutrition iQ, we’re heading in a more consumer-empowered direction. Check out Good Guide and see how foods are vetted on way more than taste and ingredients.
So what does that mean to food manufacturers and the ingredient companies that supply them? To me, it points toward better supply chain management, greater transparency and a lot more dialogue with consumers.
