US MARKET TRENDS: RETAIL VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE 2020+

RETAIL VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE 2020+

Success in tomorrow’s world will depend on how well you adapt and take advantage of change. As big data increases, understanding consumers’ needs and dreams will become a key challenge.

Meaningful Brand PerformanceThe Meaningful Brand Index found that currently only 20% of brands have a notable positive impact on our wellbeing and quality of life and most people wouldn’t care if 70% of brands disappeared – so it’s clearly time to rethink business models and business values. To deliver Meaningful Brand Performance – true value in all areas of life – we must connect and engage with our consumers. For far too long we have banked on left-brain thinking only.

Everything is interconnectedIt’s time to offer Left & Right brain values to shape a positive future vision. This is Multidimensional Thinking – my method for mapping out trends. Our Food Retail Trend Atlas 2020+ visualises the future by exploring Scientific, Social, Emotional and Spiritual dimensions. It provides a visual framework of insights – enabling us to see global and local challenges and opportunities. While the 8 key trends for tomorrow’s retail sector below are described individually, they are all, in fact, interconnected.

Technology EnablersTOTAL TRANSPARENCY becomes essential in a reputation economy, where companies have to work harder to be noticed and trusted. To be an Authentic Organisation, your brand promise and consumer experience must be totally aligned with your performance. CLOUD SERVICES, in which agility and scalability rule, inspire new business and collaborative approaches based around dialogue. With over 50 billion devices connected to the ‘Internet of Things’ by 2020, there will be rich opportunities to reach a much larger consumer audience and understand how they live.

Consumer ConnectivityMULTI-CHANNEL PLATFORMS enable seamless transitions and self-defined boundaries in all areas of life, while Smart Technology empowers and shapes lifestyle choices. Last year, more than 60% of Turkey’s population searched for products online. Clearly, companies must move to a user-centred approach – be where people are – and adapt brand messages to multiple devices. Culturally open and mobile GLOBAL CITIZENS are ‘digital native’ market influencers setting new standards in all areas of life. Turkey looks set to be rich in this talent – in the 2050s your population’s median age will be 40 and IMF predicts Turkey will become 7^th largest global economy from 2030.

Planet Focus Foster TrustTHE REAL THING requires companies to deliver Cultural Capital and ‘real’ brand experiences that foster trust and enable communities to flourish People want to know and feel exactly why they should engage with you. A BETTER WORLD is what we all want and business, not government, must drive a sustainable future because people will engage with companies and brands that are making a positive difference.

Purpose DriversINTELLIGENT HEALTH options must be inbuilt because over consumption has sparked a focus on ‘Well-Being Economics’ and is already informing our choices – it’s about better, not more of the same. Ultimately, all these trends feed into our desire for THE GOOD LIFE – in which we question conventional measures of success and consider how to achieve a happier society. We already know happiness makes sound business sense – statistics show happy people are engaged, focused and up to 50% more productive.

Meaningful Retail ExperiencesThese 8 trends clearly show that delivering meaningful retail experiences is essential. In the future, the physical retail store will not be the core customer universe so businesses must evolve to reach out to their audience. From a rational perspective, people expect convenience & dialogue; from an emotional perspective, they seek community & engagement. In order to deliver this true brand engagement, businesses must also embrace the ‘4P’ approach that considers People, Planet, Purpose and then Profit.

The Core Consumer TypologiesWe have defined four core consumer typologies that should be targeted to succeed in tomorrow’s retail environment. High achieving and aspirational PREMIUM PROFESSIONALS expect mobility, convenience and multi-channel tools to manage their lives. Creative and adventurous HAPPY BOHEMES prefer ‘we’ time over ‘me’ time and look for networks and affinity groups. Authenticity-loving CULTURAL EXPLORERS are pro-active and informed and seek out ethical ‘Better World’ initiatives. Mindful WELLBEING HUNTERS prefer ‘me’ time and, in their individual quest for meaning, they embrace transparency and intelligent reduction

Creating Value in the FutureBrilliant business models are never anonymous, but reach out to the local communities they serve in order to fulfill the real needs of people. Winners of the future will be the business and organisations that are agile enough to adapt the ‘4Ps’ to deliver sustainable, social, emotional and economic value.

IMAGE SOURCES
1) The People’s Supermarket  - Kjaer Global 2013
2) Food Retail Trend Atlas 2020+
3) Tesco Home Plus
4) Whole Foods Store
5) School of Life6) Retail Experiences 2020+

TALK
Anne Lise Kjaer at the Local Retail Chains Conference in Istanbul 04_2013

SALES & MARKETING: Burger King brings in Unilever executive to harmonize global branding

Burger King brings in Unilever executive to harmonize global branding

Bloomberg News | March 25, 2014 6:48 PM ET
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Andrey Rudakov/BloombergThere are more than 13,600 Burger King locations worldwide and about 99% of those are franchised.

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Burger King Worldwide Inc. is bringing in Unilever executive Fernando Machado as its new senior vice president of global brand management, part of an effort to burnish its image worldwide.

Machado, 39, is starting today after relocating from London to Miami, where Burger King is based, said Alix Salyers, a company spokeswoman. In the newly created job, he is reporting to Chief Marketing Officer Axel Schwan.

Machado is focused on making Burger King’s global brand consistent across international borders, “while maintaining a respect for local cultures and guest preferences,” Salyers said in an e-mail. That will include working on advertising and packaging, she said.

Burger King has been overhauling its management team since its return to public markets in 2012, following a buyout by 3G Capital Inc. about two years earlier. The company hired Daniel Schwartz as its chief executive officer last year, filling a job vacated when Bernardo Hees left to run HJ Heinz Co. Burger King also has accelerated new restaurant openings in countries such as France, South Africa and China.

Shares of the fast-food chain gained 16 percent this year before today, compared with a 0.5 percent decline for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Restaurants Index. The stock fell 1.7 percent to $26.02 at 3:05 p.m. today in New York.

In the U.S., Burger King has been trying to spur same-store sales with new items, including a Big King burger, and value- priced foods such as a $1 barbecue rib sandwich. Sales at its U.S. and Canadian restaurants open at least 13 months rose 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter, after dropping in the previous three quarters.

Machado started at Unilever in 1996 and worked on Dove products, including bath bars, body washes and the Real Beauty Sketches campaign. He was most recently the vice president of global brand development for Dove skin care.

There are more than 13,600 Burger King locations worldwide and about 99 percent of those are franchised, meaning they have independent owners.

HEALTHY FOODS: Farewell to gluten free: Why we are so easily fooled by pseudoscience and marketing gimmicks when it comes to food

Farewell to gluten free: Why we are so easily fooled by pseudoscience and marketing gimmicks when it comes to food

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Joseph Brean | March 28, 2014 4:40 PM ET
More from Joseph Brean | @JosephBrean

Chris Roussakis/National PostThe rise of gluten-free was “a function of people wanting simple solutions to complex problems,” Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says.

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Gluten gives fresh bread its pull and chew. A complex protein, it is to baked goods as tannin is to wine, more a feel than a flavour, but a key part of the sensory magic. It makes cereals satisfying, pasta al dente and crackers crisp. Bagels bounce on springs of gluten.

But gluten has lately acquired a famously bad reputation among trend-savvy nutritionistas, who blame it for everything from irritable bowels and autoimmune disorders to bloating and lethargy, even diabetes, depression, autism and schizophrenia. A whole industry has risen up to capitalize on its wholesale rejection, in which gluten-free foods are often sold at a massive mark-up over “regular” products.

But cracks are appearing, not so much in the medical science, which for the truly gluten-intolerant has made major strides in lockstep with the trend, but in gluten as the pop cultural food obsession du jour.

From nearly nothing a decade ago, by 2012, the Canadian gluten-free market was worth nearly half a billion dollars. But a forecast by industry watcher Packaged Facts suggests the market has now “peaked.”

Growth has slowed, early adopters have made most of the profit they will ever make, and if you missed the train three years ago, there is no sense trying to jump on now as it slows down. As one report for the pizza industry put it, “If the decision is made to enter the trend either: Prepare to downsize production as the trend downsizes to the appropriate audience … [and] have a fast-acting exit strategy.”

How we got here is a familiar story, said Yoni Freedhoff, an Ottawa doctor specializing in nutrition and obesity, and it reflects a modern dietary “guruism” characterized by fundamentalist claims and aggressive zealotry.

Helped along by the messianic testimonials of self-help pseudoscience and blatantly misleading advertising, “gluten free” appears to be on track to become the latest health food megatrend to collapse under the weight of time and common sense, like the low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, and the mantra of “no saturated fats,” recently undermined by a broad scientific review.

“Oh my gosh, has [gluten free] ever taken off in the last few years. … It’s pretty amazing how as a society we’re going back to basics,” said Kathy Smart, a nutritionist/chef and advocate of a gluten-free diet who did a cooking show and has been on the Dr. Oz Show. She also has celiac disease, so her motivation is medical as much as nutritional.

In this sense, she is unusual.

As a shortcut to health for the busy modern eater who does not have celiac disease, the rise of gluten free was “a function of people wanting simple solutions to complex problems. That’s just human nature. It’s not laziness,” said Dr. Freedhoff. “It’s fitting into the desire for ease: ease of thought and ease of implementation.”

As an eliminationist strategy, “gluten free” is the flip side of the nutrient fetish, in which substances are added, rather than subtracted, on much the same grounds, notably Omega 3s, polyphenols, amino acids, electrolytes and amino acids.

The problem is that, as Dr. Freedhoff has found, when you try to tell people they are fooling themselves by, for example, buying bread with “vegetables” in it (as per a current marketing campaign), or that Omega 3s don’t make their eggs any healthier, they react as if a foundational belief has been threatened, not just a dietary preference.

“People treat food like religion, it’s really strange. I can’t think of many other areas of life where there’s so much personal passion. If you believe and buy into one of these particular styles of eating, often you end up becoming very zealous in your description of same, and your preaching of same, and you want everybody else to do what you’re doing,” he said. “People really want to be right when it comes to the way we eat.”

On this view, we are not too far away from answering the door to evangelical nutritionists, asking us if we have heard the good news. And woe betide the unfortunate skeptic who points out the absence of proof.

Other interpretations can be put on the numbers, however.

“Is it a fad, or is it that there’s an epidemic?” said Margaret Dron, organizer of the Gluten Free Expo, a popular national trade show in that offers everything from basic gluten-free flours and baked goods to imported African tribal products, curry spices, sausages, gourmet camelina cooking oil, chocolate flavours “that represent the seven main chakras in the body,” even cosmetics. (Glutinous rice is so called because it is gluey, not because it has a lot of gluten.)

She said 91% of attendees go for medical reasons, which is a curious number, given that maybe one person in 200 has celiac disease. Many others, it seems, have a tendency to see food as either poison or medicine.

In the products at the expo, which include meats, there is an obvious overlap with organic, natural, pesticide-free, non-genetically modified foods. Gluten free, in this sense, is almost a proxy for “natural.”

‘People treat food like religion, it’s really strange’

Ms. Smart agrees it has taken on more than its literal meaning, and people are seeing it as meaning “healthier.”

“What I’m seeing in the industry is people will automatically assume gluten free is better for me,” Ms. Smart said.

The effects of such misinformed zealotry can be damaging, as in the “no saturated fats” message, which was over-simplified, and drove people from animal fats to processed flours and sugars. In breakfast terms, this is like switching from bacon and eggs to Cap’n Crunch.

But the impulse to medicalize food choices, to couch them in the concepts of science is an old one. As the Belgian food historian Peter Scholliers put it in a recent scholarly paper: “Media attention about acute food crises strikes the public’s imagination, leading to vehement sentiments of insecurity, anguish and occasionally panic. These sentiments, in turn, lead to eating behaviour that involves (rather harmless) vivacious food sensitivity (e.g., search for organic, authentic and light foods), as well as to (very harmful) binge eating, obesity and anorexia.”

Kaz Ehara for the National PostThe “no saturated fats” message was over-simplified and drove people from animal fats to processed flours and sugars.

Food and nutrition is a problem for many people in many ways, both in quality and quantity, but public discussion of these problems is often hyperbolic and over-simplified to slogans, from fear-mongering to dubious remedies, in which food is both problem and solution, deeply moral, infused with scientific controversy, and rarely just lunch.

Thanks to such books as Wheat Belly and The Gluten Syndrome, not to mention celebrity endorsements from Hollywood types and even tennis star Novak Djokovic, gluten free has become a cure-all, an escape hatch from the rampant pessimism.

“It’s an easy thing to latch onto as something to do to combat all of the awfulness that the alarm bells keep saying exists,” said Dr. Freedhoff. “Ultimately, we’re stuck with the the unfortunate and inconvenient truth that healthy living requires effort and there is no one simplified solution.”

‘Is it a fad, or is it that there’s an epidemic?’

It was not always this way, and it is only recently that people with celiac disease, or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, have become the darlings of popular nutrition. Once they were barely acknowledged, rarely diagnosed and poorly served at the supermarket, never mind the restaurant.

The legal literature, especially in tax court where celiac disease is frequently acknowledged as imposing a greater financial burden, is full of stories of dire medical hardship, even a woman who would get violently ill from the merest taste of grain. This financial problem only gets worse as gluten free becomes a mark of healthy luxury, and thus more expensive.

Others include a dispute over a Canadian Food Inspection Agency investigation of a (possibly, not quite) “gluten free” food wholesaler, and a divorce in which father was less diligent than mother in respecting their celiac daughter’s gluten-free diet.

From the fringes to the mainstream, like all trends, gluten has caught on, taken off, and is now starting to lose its street cred. Once a medical cure, it has become a lifestyle, a puff phrase, an advertising gimmick, a clueless self-deprivation of the perpetually cleansing, epitomized in the nutritional absurdity of the bunless burger.

Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesTennis star Novak Djokovic is a proponent of gluten free.

Often this is how restaurants nod to the glutenophobic customer, by adapting a traditional item, or making pasta or bread out of unusual grains.

Some have taken it to new gourmet heights, revealing the potential of unusual ingredients in baking, leaving flour behind and never looking back. Ms. Smart, for example, makes a pie crust out of ground almonds and coconut oil, and a tourtiere with chickpea flour. But for the true celiac, avoiding gluten is a supermarket challenge, once spoiled by lack of choice, now spoiled by rising prices.

Like many gluten-free proponents, Ms. Smart favourably cites a review article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 — long before the trend took off — that listed 55 diseases linked to gluten, including migraines, dementia, arthritis, even schizophrenia, which is famously mysterious.

There is also talk about a link to autism, another baffling human condition, which links the gluten-free trend to the far kookier world of anti-vaccine fear-mongering.

Part of the popularity of gluten free is an almost nostalgic desire for simplicity in the face of unprecedented food options, a wish that can be spoiled when big business gets involved.

“I believe that we should have never started tampering with our food,” Ms. Smart said. “When you start tampering with your foods, strange things do happen.”

But part of it is just basic cultural evolution, as trends come and go, bringing a grain of truth amid the chaff of marketing, but leaving the “problem” of nutrition unsolved, and just as complex as ever.

As Dr. Freedhoff put it: “Any time a box needs to convince you the contents are healthful, they’re probably not.”

National Post

• Email: jbrean@nationalpost.com 

CANADIAN RETAIL WARS: No Frills, Food Basics, FreshCo’s discount gaps shrinking as food fight heats up

No Frills, Food Basics, FreshCo’s discount gaps shrinking as food fight heats up

Hollie Shaw | March 26, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 26 6:36 PM ET
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Brent Lewin/BloombergPricing is on every grocer’s mind after a year of booming square footage growth in the food retail market, which expanded at about twice the normal rate.

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TORONTO •  The price gap between what grocery stores such as Loblaws and No Frills can charge on goods in Canada is narrowing, a retailing industry conference heard Wednesday, as our biggest food chains try to digest stepped-up price rivalry in the market.

Canada’s grocery giants face prospect of eroding margins that could lead to double-digit stock declines, report says

There is a serious downside risk to Canada’s grocery sector if the superior margins it enjoys compared to the U.S. decline over the next two years, says a new industry report

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It used to be that grocery chains sold goods at their conventional stores at a premium of 15% to 20% over prices at their own discount banners — think Loblaw and No Frills, Metro and Food Basics, and Sobeys and FreshCo.

But unprecedented competition in the industry over the past six to seven years has taken a toll on grocery retailers’ already-slim margins, according to CIBC World Markets.

“Prices in conventional [stores] have had to come down,” and that has resulted in a “permanent drag” on the conventional stores, Perry Caicco, retail analyst at CIBC World Markets, told the bank’s retail and consumer conference on Wednesday.
The price gap between conventional stores and discounters is now about 10%, Mr. Caicco said in an interview.

“It applies to the whole offering,” not just regular shelf prices, the analyst said. “That includes flyers, retailers’ percentage of sales on promotion — the whole package across a huge range of items. The gap between discount and conventional pricing has gradually declined.”

Beyond the unusual rate of square footage growth in the market, Mr. Caicco said a weaker Canadian dollar and debt-conscious consumers have intensified competition and squeezed margins.

Pricing is on every grocer’s mind after a year of booming square footage growth in the food retail market, which expanded at about twice the normal rate.

Walmart Canada is adding grocery departments at all of its stores, but even the retailer aiming to be the world’s leader in low prices has felt a toll on its sales from Target’s entry into this country and a drive to match prices on any of its rivals’ weekly discount flyers. Last month, Walmart Canada reported its fourth quarter in a row of falling same-store sales and customer traffic, but managed to improve its market share as it grew square footage.

“It remains a competitive market,” Eric La Fleche, CEO of the country’s third-largest grocer Metro, told the conference.

The climate is even tougher for grocers as the Canadian dollar weakens, and Mr. La Fleche acknowledged the lower dollar is pressuring margins on meat and produce.

Resulting cost pressure on suppliers in specific product areas gets factored into a grocer’s overall pricing strategy, Mr. Caicco said.

“It’s not just about [a grocer] raising price on a shelf,” he said. “It’s perhaps there are fewer promotions on that item than there were before.”

High Liner Foods noted in its CIBC presentation that as beef prices rise, consumers might shift some of their spending to seafood or chicken.

Brent Lewin/BloombergA shopper walks past a FreshCo. grocery store sign in Toronto.

“Although individual products may see individual increases in price because the pressure is huge, consumers may shift off to cheaper alternatives for proteins and carbohydrates. So from a consumer point of view, you are not necessarily experiencing rising prices,” the analyst added.

Metro has been viewed in the industry as the player with the most to lose after its main competitors Loblaw and Sobeys bulked up by acquiring Shoppers Drug Mart and Canada Safeway. Metro restructured its Ontario operations last year to focus more on the growing discount food category and has been defensively growing square footage in its discount Food Basics banner.

Another way grocers can keep a lid on prices to consumers is to ask for price relief from suppliers. After its purchase of Safeway last year, Sobeys asked for a 1% retroactive price cut from suppliers and said it would not accept price increases for the year except on pharmacy items and commodities.

Since then, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers and the Food & Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC), an agency representing major manufacturers such as Heinz, Kraft, Campbell’s and Coca-Cola, Kraft and Heinz, have been calling for Ottawa to establish grocery codes of conduct to protect manufacturers and smaller retailers.

In accepting No. 1 player Loblaw’s takeover of Shoppers Drug Mart last week, the Competition Bureau noted it was imposing “behavioural restrictions” on the retailer’s programs and agreements with suppliers, to ensure manufacturers would not get squeezed by the industry’s largest players.

Everyone can fight for the lowest common denominator

Mr. La Fleche dismissed calls for the code of conduct.

“We are are known to be easy negotiators,” he said, noting in a meeting last fall with suppliers it was clear that the “procurement synergies that some competitors are claiming are not going to be at our expense.”

For Sobeys’ part, CEO Marc Poulin told the conference his grocery chain is doing “whatever it takes to be competitive in [price].”

When asked about supplier issues, Mr. Poulin said relationship is “harmonious,” saying the way Safeway negotiated with suppliers is “very different” from Sobeys. “We are very pleased with the way it’s going with suppliers”.

Despite the drive to discount, both Sobeys and Metro are trying to draw in customers to their conventional, full-assortment stores by initiating new food marketing programs promoting healthier food and added ethnic grocery items.

“Everyone can fight for the lowest common denominator,” Mr. Poulin said. “We can move to that direction and some customers want that from the food shopping experience … but the vast majority of Canadians are seeking more” than low price, he said.

“If you try to chase everybody in the markets as this market differentiates, you’re gonna get killed.”

HEALTH ALERT: STUDY REFUTES FOOD ADDITIVES LINK TO HIVES, SKIN RASHES

STUDY REFUTES FOOD ADDITIVES LINK TO HIVES, SKIN RASHES

Published March 26, 2014 in Food Product Design

Posted in News, Science & Research, Food Additive, Taste, Preservatives, Emulsifiers, Processing,Aspartame, Immunity, Immune Health, Allergens, Food Allergies, Food Safety, Nitrates / Nitrites, Natural

SAN DIEGO—Some consumers have blamed food additives for causing allergic reactions, but new research published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice shows additives like dyes, preservatives, emulsifiers and flavor enhancers are probably not the culprits of various skin irritations.

Lead author Jessica Rajan and researchers from  Scripps Clinic in San Diego studied 100 patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU), a condition defined as the presence of skin irritations for six weeks or longer. They tested 11 additives commonly blamed for allergic reactions, including aspartame, monosodium glutamate, yellow dye No. 6, sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate.

Only two of the 100 subjects had a positive urticarial response on the single-blind test, and neither of these patients had a positive response on the double-blind, placebo-controlled test. Patients also had no gastrointestinal, respiratory or other types of symptoms. Researchers concluded that sensitivity to any of the 11 food and drug additives occurs in less than 1% of patients with CIU.

The use of food additives has become a topic of interest for increasingly health-conscious consumers looking for clean-label food products. Recent innovations in natural color additives have led to a significant growth in the market, which is projected to hit $5.8 billion by 2018. In addition to color additives, preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners, binders, texturizers, fat replacers and flavor enhancers are also predicted to experience strong growth in upcoming years. For details on what increased interest in natural colors means for food and beverage formulators, view the FoodTech Toolbox slide show A Look at Natural Colors.

CONSUMER FEEDBACK: CONSUMERS DEMAND MORE TRANSPARENCY FROM FOOD COMPANIES

CONSUMERS DEMAND MORE TRANSPARENCY FROM FOOD COMPANIES

Published in Food Product Design March 27, 2014

Posted in News, Science & Research, Consumer Preference, Business, Processing, Agriculture,Sustainability, Market Research

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Consumers are demanding transparency from food companies regarding where their food comes from and how it is produced, according to a new whitepaper from Sullivan Higdon & Sink (SHS).

According to the “Emerging Faith in Food Production" whitepaper, about 65% of consumers want to know more about where their food comes from, but only 31% believe food companies are transparent about food production practices. In addition, 67% of consumers would like to see the food industry take more action to educate people on how food is produced.

"Food companies have the opportunity to build trust and loyalty among Americans while educating consumers on certain processes," said Erika Chance, senior FoodThink researcher. "Transparency about animal welfare, sustainable practices and fair labor practices will help to soften consumers' distrust of the food industry."

The whitepaper, built from a 2014 study, is a comparative analysis of consumers' changed food production perceptions since SHS FoodThink's white paper "Building Trust in What We Eat," based on a 2012 survey. The new data shows that the industry is moving in the right direction.

"The increase of information about food production has consumers wondering who to trust and what to believe," Chance said. "It's important, now more than ever, for food marketers to proactively pull back the curtain to educate and answer questions honestly to decrease consumer concern."

As consumers ask more questions about the foods they eat and what goes into the production process, transparency, especially among large organizations, is becoming increasingly important to the inquisitive consumer. In Food Product Design's slide show The Seven Elements of Trust-Building Transparency, the Center for Food Integrity (CFI) reveals how food companies can overcome consumer biases and skepticism.

Sources:

• Sullivan Higdon & Sink: Consumers Still Hunger For More Transparency From Food Industry

U.S. consumer confidence hits 6-year high in March

NEW YORK — Reuters

Published Tuesday, Mar. 25 2014, 10:27 AM EDT

Last updated Tuesday, Mar. 25 2014, 2:21 PM EDT

U.S. consumer confidence rose in March to its highest in more than six years as expectations brightened, according to a private sector report released on Tuesday.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes rose to 82.3, the highest since January 2008, from a upwardly revised 78.3 in February. Economists had expected a reading of 78.6, according to a Reuters poll.

“Over all, consumers expect the economy to continue improving and believe it may even pick up a little steam in the months ahead,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board in a statement.February’s figure was originally reported as 78.1.

“While consumers were moderately more upbeat about future job prospects and the overall economy, they were less optimistic about income growth.”

The expectations index rose to 83.5 from and upwardly revised 76.5, while the present situation index fell to 80.4 from a revised 81.0.

Consumers’ labor market assessment was slightly more negative in March. The “jobs hard to get” index rose to 33.0 per cent from a downwardly revised 32.4 per cent in February, while the “jobs plentiful” index dipped to 13.1 per cent from 13.4 per cent.

Consumers anticipated larger price increases, with expectations for inflation in the coming 12 months up to 5.5 per cent in March from 5.2 per cent.