• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, June 12, 2015

A significant 41% of regular grocery shoppers surveyed by the Food Marketing Institute in the first quarter said that when it comes to helping them stay healthy, food manufacturers work against them.

Just 13% of the 2,265 adult grocery shoppers surveyed for FMI’s latest annual U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends study said that food companies work “for” them in regard to health.

Fast-food restaurants fared even worse: 57% said that these companies work against their health interests, versus just 6% saying they work in favor of those interests. Local restaurants were ranked much more favorably: 32% said these establishments work for them, and 11% said they work against them.

Fast-feeders came in dead last among the 16 different groups that consumers were asked to rank on this question, and food companies ranked third-to-last. That puts both industries below mid-ranked groups like drug stores, health insurance companies, government institutions, the news media and celebrity chefs, as well as far below the highest-ranked groups (family, doctors, friends, farmers and fitness/health clubs, in that order).

Interestingly, food stores — particularly shoppers’ primary food stores — also drew notably favorable rankings on this question. Nearly half (45%) of shoppers said that their primary food stores help them stay healthy (versus 6% saying these stores work against them), and 30% said that food stores in general work for them (versus 13% saying these work against them).

“This is interesting on the face of it, because one has to assume that it is people's primary food store that, in fact, is selling shoppers the products made by food manufacturers,” observed Kevin Coupe, editor of food industry newsletter Morning News Beat. “That said, this plays into the broader issue of a growing consumer mistrust in what is called ‘big food.’”

Coupe added that at least for the moment, some food retailers “seem to have done a good job of using fresh food and differentiated services to gain some distance from many of the products they sell in the core of the store (and for which many are amply rewarded in slotting allowances and promotional fees).” But he warned that retailers “should not be complacent about this, because mistrust in ‘big food’ could transfer to ‘big retail’ quickly and easily.”

The grocery shopper research, conducted for FMI by The Hartman Group, also included in-home and in-store interviews and online journaling from consumers from 10 multi-shopper households, and analysis of U.S. Census and U.S. Department of Agriculture data on consumer spending, health, and eating, and 2013-2015 Hartman Group ethnographic and survey research into eating and shopping.

Multi-Shopper Households Now the Norm

The research confirms that more and more people are playing a larger role in grocery shopping. In fact, 57% of the population report that they do all or most of the grocery shopping, and 26% say they share in at least 50% of the grocery shopping, resulting in a whopping 83% of U.S. adults who supposedly participate in at least half the food shopping for their households.

“If that feels high, it might be due to continued battling perceptions within a household regarding that which constitutes a ‘primary shopper,’ with one person in the house defining it as the number of trips made to the market, and the other in the household defining it according to quantity of groceries purchased,” acknowledged FMI president and CEO Leslie G. Sarasin, in her keynote at the FMI Connect annual convention this week. “But regardless of the metric used, grocery shopping has clearly moved into shared territory in the household division of labor.”  

A few other highlights from the research (a free summary is available on FMI’s site):

• Households divide their grocery-shopping responsibilities in different ways. While some “primary” shoppers delegate some shopping to a “secondary” shopper within the home, an even greater number of people in multi-shopper households report that food-management duties are more equitably shared. Secondary shopping roles are generally confined to those male shoppers who are virtually uninvolved in meal preparation, but long-term trends have tended to integrate men into a growing portion of cooking and food involvement. (Forty-three percent of men continue to report that they are the primary food shoppers.) Overall, 43% of individuals in multi-shopper households are primary shoppers, 10% are secondary shoppers and 23% are shared shoppers. “Self shoppers” account for 25% of total grocery shoppers.
• Many secondary grocery shoppers go to the store with a list, but they tend to make more buying decisions on the spot than primary shoppers. Conclusion: Food retailers need to understand and cater to households, not just primary shoppers, especially to encourage that “spirit of discovery” (impulse purchases) among secondary shoppers.
• Most shared shoppers (55% across men and women) also share dinner preparation duties, but 48% of secondary shoppers leave dinner prep entirely to their partners.
• 63% of eating occasions are decided at the last minute (within one hour of the meal or snack).
• 30% of the top 25 growth categories in supermarkets are chilled or perishable (“fresh fast food”).
• 77% of all eating occasions involve some prepared foods.
• Despite stereotypes of harried parents, meal consistency actually peaks among households with children, primarily due to their higher rates of dinner consumption.