Last week was Allegra’s How Britain Eats!™ report debrief, by Anya Marco, Director of Insight at Allegra. This was the sixth annual How Britain Eats!™ report, which assesses the key food shopping, cooking and eating habits of British consumers today.
Below are the top 5 insights of particular interest.
1. Consumers chose quality over price
What surprised me in terms of the British food shop spending habits, is that the British public understand that good quality comes with a price, which we are willing to accept and pay for. This comes into context when we think of some of the recent food scandals over the past year, which seem to have led the British public to appreciate that they would rather pay a higher price for good quality.
2. Consumers are spending less on their weekly shop
Due to the country’s economic situation, it seems it’s not just what we buy that is changing but also how we buy. Allegra found that consumers are spending less on their weekly shops (£20-£60) but then making more regular convenient shops for one or two items to top up throughout the week. It has also become more accessible to shop like this due to the vast amount of convenience shops dotted around our streets.
3. More consumers now doing their weekly shop online
Around 75% of British consumers are now finding it more economical to do their weekly shop online. The benefits include being able to track what goes into your basket and stick to a budget. Online shopping also avoids having to pay for petrol and parking.
The 25% of consumers that are still grocery shopping in-store say that they do this because either 1) they like the experience of food shopping or 2) they like to be able to see and feel the food they are buying, including checking sale by dates. It will be interesting to see in the next 10 years how online food shopping develops and whether we will be able to pick our sale by dates, or even further in the future select the exact apple or pear we want from the comfort of our own homes.
4. Use of technology when eating in and out of home
Of course technology isn’t just developing in terms of online shopping, but with a majority of the British public now owning a smart phone the rise in food apps is huge. People are using their smart phones for food nutrition, recipes or to eat out. For example some restaurants are developing apps similar to that of Wagamama’s that allows the consumer to order takeaway or look for their nearest store, all at the touch of button and on the go.
5. The rise of British ‘Foodies’
There has been a rise in the amount of people that consider themselves ‘aspirational gourmets,’ – these are folk that would believe themselves to be the next in line for Master Chef or the Great British Bake off, and it is partly due to shows like these that the British public are aspiring to become knowledgeable about all things food. The 28% of people that believe themselves to be ‘aspirational gourmet’ are people that go out to restaurants to try and mimic the food back home; they are also the ones we are most likely to see on Facebook and Instagram sharing pictures of their own masterpieces in the kitchen, or their plates of food in restaurants.
A step down from this we have the majority of us (70%) who consider ourselves ‘foodies’ that enjoy food and especially appreciate eating good food out of home, but are less interested in pursuing the dream of becoming a chef. Most interesting are the “disinterested refuelers” that although they eat to live rather than live to eat, they are the most likely to eat out of home, as they have no interest in working out how the oven works.
The presentation was an insightful experience into the minds of the British public and it certainly prompts a lot of thought on how their changing habits will affect retailers and hospitality providers in future.
Source: http://blog.micros-ecommerce.com/
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