Jul 19, 2016

By: Charmaine Wiggins, Manager of Research, Food Marketing Institute
Grilled Vegetables

Summer is in full swing and all across the country, Americans are taking the time to enjoy backyard cookouts with friends and loved ones.

But who is doing the shopping for the food items enjoyed in these summer get-togethers?

The chances are really good that the shopping responsibility for these backyard grill-fests didn’t fall squarely with just one person, but were a cooperative effort among the household’s multiple shoppers. According to FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report, 85 percent of all adults in the U.S. report that they have at least half the household responsibility for grocery shopping. Last year we identified that the “primary shopper paradigm” where one person –usually Mom – handled all the food selecting, planning, cooking, and shopping –was giving way to a new “shared shopper paradigm,” in which households delegate or collaborate on food shopping.

In this year’s Trends we dig deeper into this “shared shopper” phenomenon to explore the motivations, methods, and a bit of the madness, behind it.  Each household does it differently, but it’s impacting the purchasing behavior of well over half our shoppers. 

To unpack more about the shared shopper phenomenon, FMI along with our knowledge partner, The Hartman Group, are hosting an overview webinar on August 3rd at 1pm EDT. Laurie Demerit, Chief Executive Officer at The Hartman Group and David Fikes, Vice President, Communications & Consumer/Community Affairs at FMI will explore the shift and growth of co-shopping. During this one-hour webcast, we will present some of the new data points that came out of the 2016 study and review many of the long tracked trends.

On August 25th at 2pm EDT, our second webinar in the Trends summer series will focus on health and wellness.  While nearly 90 percent of shoppers believe eating at home is healthier than eating at a restaurant, 74 percent of shoppers say the food they eat at home could be healthier. Today’s food shoppers understand the important role food choices play in their health, but they still struggle to make changes to improve their food selection. Join FMI's Sue Borra, Chief Health and Wellness Officer & Executive Director of the FMI Foundation and David Fikes as they take a closer look at the health and wellness trends from two of FMI's recently released signature research studies, U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2016 and Shopping for Health 2016.