Helping Consumer Empowerment Become Food Retailer Empowerment

By: David Fikes, Vice President, Consumer/Community Affairs and Communication, Food Marketing Institute

Consumers have always mentally weighed and emotionally entertained multiple factors when making their decisions about the food products they are considering. For years, those variables could easily be summarized in the formula of three words; price, taste and convenience. Those three factors still loom large in the shopper’s thought process, but an evolution in consumer thinking is pushing a number of new considerations, resulting in a much more complex, multi-factored consumer value equation. New research by Deloitte, developed in collaboration with FMI and GMA, probes the breadth, depth and richness of those new factors.

The Deloitte research, Capitalizing on the Shifting Consumer Food Value Equation, noted that to the traditional equation of price, taste, and convenience, new factors—health and wellness, safety, social impact and experience—must be added. While these may have always been in the minds of some shoppers, today their meaning is expanding and they are becoming more important drivers of consumer behavior.

Surveying more than 5,000 consumers, Deloitte found that overall there are more shoppers considering these evolving drivers (51 percent) than those just entertaining the traditional considerations (49 percent). This is perhaps more than what many industry players would have suspected and represents a larger, more meaningful, scalable opportunity for the industry to explore.  

Even more enlightening is what Deloitte found regarding the demographics of this growing majority considering these evolving factors. It might be easy to speculate that the socially conscious, value laden millennial group is responsible for the rise in these new factors, but the research results point in other directions. The bottom line analysis reveals that age, income, geography and gender did not dramatically impact the distribution, meaning that this new group of evolving consumers shopping with an expanded value equation includes millennials, gen X’ers, baby boomers, and members of the great generation. Those processing a more complex shopping equation while walking the grocery aisles cut across all demographics.

The Deloitte research goes into greater detail about how the definitions of these expanded value factors are growing and in many ways overlapping. For example, consumer interpretations of food safety now include aspects of health and wellness and social impact issues.

While we may wax philosophically and generically about “the age of the empowered consumer,” the heart of Deloitte’s new research points us down some very specific avenues regarding the kind of information the new customer wants, the partnership they wish to have with their retailer and food provider, and the quality of service they are expecting.  Food retailers have some distinct opportunities to open dialogue with their shoppers exploring shared values and company positioning on issues that matter to the customer.  Retaining customer loyalty is a very traditional factor in the food retail business plan, but it is a concept that must be upgraded to accommodate the new shopper’s sensitivities if it is to remain an effective tool in our success. The Deloitte research provides a helpful roadmap in finding the spaces where meaningful engagement with the new customer can take place.

Visit the FMI Store to order a copy of Capitalizing on the Shifting Consumer Food Value Equation.