Top Five Trends in Staple Foods

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Key findings

Food costs continue to drive consumer choices

Cheaper staple foods and cheaper channels in which to purchase continue to be favoured by consumers – sales via discounters and warehouse clubs are growing, and high value for money foods such as rice are seeing sales increase.

Baked goods price pressure remains, but the reasons have shifted

Baked goods (almost half of all staple foods sales) had seen costs increase significantly through grain prices growing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While this impact has tempered, the soaring cost of cocoa (and higher sugar costs) have seen sweet baked goods increase in price.

A warming world has increased supply fragility

Extreme weather events, alongside greater probability of drought, flood or unseasonable cold snaps have made harvest reliability more doubtful; the increased fragility of supply is now a fact of food systems.

Consumers are prioritising health from food

While budgets remain tight, consumer willingness to pay more for food they deem healthy remains – and is even increasing, following a prolonged period of being primarily concerned with cost-saving.

Unprocessed food is increasingly sought-after

Consumers are increasingly seeing processed (and especially ultra processed) food as inherently unhealthy; some staple foods are thus in the firing line (for example, breakfast cereals, cakes, pastries etc). Other staples are likely to benefit compared to foods like snacks or ready meals – for example, frozen fruit, rice, shelf stable vegetables, etc.