BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON—Food and technology are two of the biggest forces acting on consumer culture today, a phenomenon The Hartman Group explores in its new report, “Digital Food Life 2014.”

With 70 percent of consumers using digital food resources at least weekly, here are some of the ways they’re changing food culture:

  • Going forward, the most successful food companies will focus less on consumers’ wants and needs and more on what people are actually doing with food, how they play with it and what meals and snacks they make – all activities anchored by the digital world and far different from the “need states” marketers traditionally study. 
  • The dynamic between companies and consumers is shifting from “I offer/you buy or reject” to something more participatory in which people share information and ideas digitally and buy products directly from manufacturers. The hotbed of food and technology also incubates hyper-local, niche food players. 
  • Much of what consumers do with food online is both play and shopping preparation, such as crafting collections of recipes and food photos, “digital cuisines” that they consult from grocery stores and elsewhere. In fact, 20 percent of smartphone users recently used Pinterest to access recipes or cooking instructions. 
  • Repeat customers of digital food companies tend to be young, care about food, and live in dense urban areas. 
  • Using the Internet to buy food remains a relatively specialized aspect of food culture, with only 13 percent of smartphone users recently ordering groceries online for delivery or pick-up and 19 percent using a digital service to arrange delivery from a restaurant. 
  • People see technology’s effect on food as both vibrant and hopeful, with 87 percent of online adults expecting “significant progress” in the world of eating, food shopping or food creation during the next decade. 

About The Hartman Group
The Hartman Group, a leading advisor to the world’s best-known food and beverage brands, understands consumer behavior from a cultural perspective. It offers custom research, market analytics and business strategy services rooted in decades of anthropological work and constantly updated with new insights based on consumers’ evolving relationships and experiences with the world of food.

About the Digital Food Life 2014 report
By exploring the digital disruption of the food marketplace, this report provides food and beverage companies with an in-depth understanding of how to effectively engage consumers in an information-rich and technologically enabled world and how consumers are reshaping the marketplace of today and tomorrow. 

Contact:
Blaine Becker
Senior Director, Marketing
425.452.0818, ext. 124
blaine@hartman-group.com