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08.02.2006

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

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For more Hartman Group articles on FOOD TRENDS, click here...

03.15.2006 "The Death of Soda"

03.08.2006 "Satiety: The Next Food Trend?"

12.01.2005 "Packaged Goods: Value-Add or Value-Less?"

07.14.2005 "Is 'Buying Local' the Real Deal?"

11.04.2004 "Trans Fat: the (Consumer) Issue that Never Was"

For more Hartman Group articles on FOOD CULTURE, click here...

02.01.2006 "Brand New Inspiration for the Culture of Food"

04.14.2005 "Emerging Trends in Parenting the Healthy Eater: Our Evolving Food Culture"

03.24.2005 "Convenient...and Fresh?: Evolving Food Culture in America"

11.11.2004 "What's for Dinner?: Understanding Meal Fragmentation as a Cultural Phenomenon"

09.23.2004 "Asian Dinner Mixes & the Family Meal: Evolving Food Culture"

08.05.2004 "Snacking Our Way Through the Day: Food Culture in America"

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4 Hot Food Trends

When it comes to identifying trends in the marketplace, the methods and practices deployed to identify the trends are often as diverse as the trends themselves.

In the fashion world, some eyes focus on (and around) the runways of Paris, Milan and New York to see what's hot for the upcoming seasons, while others take to the streets to see what the kids are up to. Still others choose to focus on fashions in places many would be terrified to enter.

In the food and beverage marketplace, the term "expert" is applied to a staggeringly diverse array of characters including chefs, designers, captains of industry, financial analysts, soothsayers, farmers, journalists...you name it. And all seem perfectly at ease predicting where our appetites are headed.

We've always believed that while it is interesting to learn about what products consumers are buying, or where they are shopping, it is far more important to understand the "why behind the buy" - to get a sense of the bigger picture trends shaping current and future behavior for years (not weeks) to come.

Here are our top four picks for the meta trends driving current and future behavior in food and beverage circles in the coming months:

Trend #1. Redefinition of "quality" away from packaged and processed and towards fresh

While the trend towards "all things fresh" is surely not a startling new revelation here in the second half of 2006, one cannot overlook the impact fresh has had on all segments of the food industry. The move toward "Fresh" implies the gradual replacement of traditional CPG products with "fresh" counterparts, on a category-by-category basis. From CPG products to grocery retail, to quick-service restaurant (QSR) and even local farm economies, the growing consumer interest in quality "fresh" products and offerings is transforming the way we all do business on a daily basis.

Whereas many years ago consumers were actually attracted to the convenience, predictability and reliability of processed and packaged foods, those same features now repel (if not repulse) most consumers. Like it or not, our complex global economy and our flexible production and distribution systems have given consumers access to goods of unparalleled quality and distinction (hallmark features of fresh), and for most there is no need to go back.

To understand the impact fresh has had on the contemporary supermarket industry, one needs to look no further than the current state of center store in traditional grocery retailers. There is no other way to say it, but center store - at least as we knew it - is gone and it will never be back. Some grocers may stubbornly refuse to recognize this reality, but this head-in-the-sand approach will only lead to a quicker demise, as we've seen in the recent cases of Albertsons, Winn Dixie and others.

The short story is that the fresh revolution is here, its simply a matter of time before it is more fully realized.

Note that we are not suggesting that there will be no place for packaged foods, either now or in the future. Rather, what we are suggesting is that packaged foods will continue to be increasingly marginalized in favor of fresh alternatives - especially as innovation teams fashion appropriate responses to these developments. Adept managers who understand the full implications of this trend will see the need to quickly transform their offerings, lest they be rendered irrelevant and obsolete in the years to come.

Trend #2. Globalization of food preferences

Our notion of choice is undergoing great transformation. Whereas we've always enjoyed lots of choice in the marketplace - new colors, new shapes, more interesting flavors, new sizes - our more complex, flexible, global economy ensures more diverse, more authentic and higher quality choices. Who cares about Coke, Tab or Diet 7-UP when you can choose between many hundreds of specialty beverages, many of which have themselves grown out of authentic cultural traditions (San Pelligrino, Orangina, etc.)?

Foods once appearing ethnic, exotic or just plain disgusting to older generations are now commonplace in the daily lives of our younger generations. For example, we have interviewed many consumers around the US - mostly older - who claim to have never experienced Chinese or Thai cuisines. Consumers in their 30s or 40s are, by now, mostly well-acquainted with global cuisines, yet tend to view them largely as dining out options when in a specific mood for ethnic food (as in, "Do you want to grab Indian food or sushi tonight?"). Kids in their teens and early 20s, by comparison, have spent their entire lives under such global influence. To these consumers, global styles and cuisines are almost second nature. Today's teenage consumers, for example, are as comfortable indulging in Japanese candy or sushi after school and cooking Pad Thai for dinner as they are meeting their friends for Dim-Sum on a Saturday afternoon.

CPG manufacturers would be well advised to understand the global nature of such preferences when plotting strategies for the future. We can promise you that tomorrow's consumer will never be content with conventional staples such as potato chips, cookies, gum or soda - or the typical flavor extensions common to those products.

Remember, in 2006 every product or brand is, by definition, a global brand.

Trend #3. Movement toward food and product experiences, not the simple purchase of SKUs, products or brands

As we've noted elsewhere, the legacy brands in the CPG arena were truly innovative and relevant to consumers' lives in the middle of the 20th century. Our post-war obsession with efficiency and household economy generated a great deal of fascination and interest around products that brought convenience and efficiency to one's pantry.

But as strange as it may seem, things have really changed a lot over the past 50 or 60 odd years. Today's consumer is much less interested in purchasing collections of branded products and much more interested in fostering and engaging in interesting food experiences, many of which are themselves linked intimately to specific retail channels.

So rather than shopping once every week or two and always cooking from boxes and cans, today's consumer often engages in a variety of approaches to household meal provisioning. On busy evenings, many prefer to outsource meal production to a local fast-casual restaurant or the prepared foods department of a leading specialty foods retailer. On other occasions, Dad may grab some fresh meats and produce from a neighborhood market after work and spend the evening around the grill. On still others, Mom may express her individuality by cooking a recipe from one of her many food magazines.

Whatever the experience or occasion, branded products are simply far less relevant to the end goal (engaging meals) than they were 50 years ago, because few meal occasions and/or product experiences are ever staged around specific branded products. Branded products may be useful in a pinch, or in the occasional lunch box or picnic basket, but branded food products are not the backbone of a compelling food experience.

To be certain, products matter, but they are not as important as accomplishing tasks and compelling experiences. While product mix and selection is surely a very important component of any retail experience, the individual products are themselves of much less importance than the larger retail experience at hand.

Trend #4. Advent of multiple occasions for shopping demands new ways of merchandising

Traditional marketers and researchers espouse the time-worn belief that consumer shopping behavior is largely a result of: "what happens in the store." In fact, our recent evidence regarding the trend toward occasion-based shopping patterns reveals that nothing could be further from the truth.

And far from trying to devise clever ways to increase their customer's basket size with marketing and promotions strategies (sales, discounts, specials, etc.), we believe the more innovative retailers will first attempt to creatively address their customer's occasion-based needs.

You see, shopping is no longer just about restocking the pantry or the refrigerator. For most households, the bulk of their shopping trips are always about accomplishing tasks amid a variety of occasions.

As we learned in our ground-breaking shopper insights research, consumers do not arrive at a channel in search of a set of products, they arrive to accomplish tasks on specific shopping occasions by engaging in a compelling set of experiences. Importantly, the channels chosen to accomplish those tasks, as well as the goals and tasks themselves, are decided at home and are frequently subject to the household debate. Likewise, those channels and occasions dramatically shape subsequent shopping behavior.

For example, when consumers arrive at their neighborhood grocer after a nine-hour workday and are seeking to provide a meal on their family's dinner table, they are not typically interested in promotions or in-store discounts. Nor, for that matter, are they interested in taking the time necessary to carefully choose branded products. What they could use, on the other hand, is quick access to "fresh" versions of certain products that are critical to mealtime preparation.

So rather than stock POS areas (i.e., check-out shelves) with candy and magazines - products that have little relevance to most evening shopping occasions - why not deploy mobile product sets such that POS areas now become a convenient venue for a host of meal-relevant solutions such as fresh-baked breads, cheeses, water, wine, etc.?

What this means: It's all about culture!

It's a changing world. There is a changing consumer; no one specific type of consumer and no one set lifestyle. We are experiencing a significant cultural shift in which consumers will continue to change their behavior and align with companies who are relevant to their new ways of living. The idea of a traditional marketplace is pretty much dead, thanks largely to Boomers who are redefining and reshaping just about everything and driven by consumption behaviors tied to soulful experiences. Consequently, because there is no mass market, the marketplace is now about a whole host of niche markets. Marketers should get on board now to understand the influences of culture, because we are all in for quite a ride.

Treats Gone Global...

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