By Rieva Lesonsky
What will we be eating and drinking this year? Mintel, a leading market research agency, just released its projections for key trends that will impact the American food and drink market in 2015. Here’s a look at two of the trends:
No more diets. Mintel says, “Consumers are shunning restrictive fads in favor of a more holistic wellness approach.” This doesn’t mean we’re eating whatever we want, but calorie counting is out and eating products high in protein is in. In fact, the number of food and drink products launched with low/no/reduced fat, sugar or calories decreased between 2013 and 2014, while the number of products with high/added fiber or protein claims increased.
Whether you own a restaurant or other dining establishment or manufacture or sell food, the word “diet” will not win you many customers.
‘Net profits. Ecommerce is now shaking up food and drink retailing, says Mintel, with overall sales of about $301.3 billion in 2014. However, only 31 percent of men and 21 percent of women ages 18 to 34 have bought groceries online in the past 12 months. And the older consumers are, the less likely they are to order food online.
The good news is, consumers do turn to the Web when looking for hard-to-find food items, and price is not a concern in those cases. Mintel says popular foods to order online include wine and chocolate from overseas.
Consumers also want:
- To know where their foods come from (transparency)
- More tools for home chefs and gourmands
- Value for their money
If you want to know more, Mintel is having a Food and Drink Trends webinar on February 12 at 3:00 ET. You can register here.
Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media and custom content company focusing on small business and entrepreneurship. Email Rieva at rieva@smallbizdaily.com, follow her on Google+ and Twitter.com/Rieva
