A recent survey about consumer buying trends shows that rising prices are playing into food purchasing decisions. The survey was conducted by the Stratovation Group in partnership with food and agriculture communications agency Inspire. Kenny Kuhn is vice-president of insights at Stratovation.
“Over half of these respondents agree that pricing has affected their food by habits. In a separate question, same thing, over half of these folks that were saying it’s also impacting how often they dine out and things like that. So that was putting a pretty big number behind those attitudes.”
Kuhn says the respondents told them they are cutting back on a number of food categories.
“Number one response is backing off of alcoholic beverages. Top response, right, but then there’s a top tier. There’s about five or six others that were really important, and it was gourmet items, reducing gourmet items, dining in or takeout. First protein reduction was seafood, sweets and treats, and then rounding out the top tier was beef.”
Mace Thornton, a partner at Stratovation Group, added that consumers still prefer beef, but are making tough choices.
“Beef really isn’t being singled out, but it’s part of that broader pattern that shows that consumers are pulling back on items that they see as discretionary or kind of high-cost things. That doesn’t make it any less important for the cattle and beef industry. We don’t (see) a value shift away from beef. It is a highly price sensitive signal.”
The research surveyed more than 800 consumers. You can find the survey results here.