FOOD ON THE RUN’ AN EMERGING SECTOR WORTH $90 BILLION

Published September 20, 2013 in Food  Product Design

Posted in News, Beverages, Breakfast, Consumer Preference, Convenience Foods, Diet, Frozen Foods,Frozen / Refrigerated Foods, Healthy, Healthy Foods, Market Trends, Market Research, Nutrition,Demographic, Retail, Science & Research, Snack Foods, Economics

CHICAGO—Recent research dove into the daily eating habits of Americans and found that the age-old image of a family seated around the dining room table enjoying a home-cooked meal is falling by the wayside, while the number of Americans grabbing food on the run is an emerging segment, currently valued at $90 billion, according to new market data from Information Resources, Inc. (IRI).

While 79% of Americans are planners and eat three meals or several smaller meals throughout the day, research shows 21% eat on the run. Dubbed “opportunists" by IRI, these eaters tend to grab food and drink throughout the day as the opportunity arises, with little consideration as to whether they are eating a meal or a snack, as reported in the study, “How America Eats: Capturing Growth with Food on the Run."
Compared to the planned eaters, opportunists are less inclined to factor healthy eating into their daily regimen. More opportunists (36%) split their healthy and indulgent behaviors equally, eating healthy half the time and eating more freely the rest of the time, compared to planners (31%). A large number of opportunist eaters (39%) grab convenient foods with little thought as to whether those foods are playing the role of a snack or meal.

Opportunists are also more value-driven, the research showed. For example, 31% of opportunists tend to buy whatever food/beverage is on sale with little concern for nutritional value, compared to 18% of planners. Likewise, available coupons/discounts are a key influencer of meal/snack decisions for one-third of opportunists, versus about one-quarter of planners.

Results show opportunists still enjoy cooking (49%), but look for convenience when evaluating food and beverage options. Two-thirds want foods that are quick and easy to prepare, and one-third prefer to eat heat-and-eat or ready-to-eat foods rather than preparing options from scratch. As a result, opportunists spent 60% more on frozen appetizers and snack rolls versus planners during the past year. Frozen appetizers and snack rolls, as well as a variety of other convenience-oriented categories, are expected to demonstrate high growth, especially among opportunist eaters versus the market as a whole.

Opportunist eaters hail from diverse backgrounds, cutting across age, income and household brackets. Two-thirds of opportunists are female, and 92% are of non-Hispanic origin. Skewing slightly to the lower end of the income spectrum, nearly two-thirds of opportunists come from single-member or two-member households. Many are living a bachelor/bachelorette life, or the life of a dual-income-no-kid family, where life is a bit less scheduled. Just under half are under the age of 45.

Sources:

• IRi: IRI Research Examines How Americans Eat

Check out my latest e-book entitled: "Social Media Marketing in Agri-Foods: Endless Profit and Painless Gain"

The book is available on Amazon and Kindle for $4.99 USD. Visit amazon/Kindle to order now:
http://www.amazon.ca/Social-Media-Marketing-Agri-Foods-ebook/dp/B00C42OB3E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1364756966&sr=1-1

Thanks for taking the time!

BRANDAID Food launches new video. Check it out.

INTRODUCTION

BRANDAID Food Inc. is a privately held company based in Toronto, Canada. Our mission is to source and brand food products from around the world and sell these products into global markets under unique “Branding” programs.  Check out our new BRANDAID Food video.

BRANDAID Food (www.brandaidfood.com) develops the retail, wholesale and food service channels capitalizing on already established market relationships. The Branding programs are designed to develop a loyal customer base combined with extensive sales, marketing and technical support from the artisanal grower through to the end consumer.

Fruit is processed through HACCP and Global Gap certified facilities in Brazil.  We have NDA Non Compete Agreements with our suppliers.  BRANDAID completes plant audits on a regular basis to guarantee our product quality.  BRANDAID has product and quality liability insurance.

World Class Certified Suppliers of Brazilian Tropical Fruits

Contact: Bruce MacDonald, President & CEO, bmacdonald@brandaidfood.com; 

cell: 647-244-1063

www.brandaidfood.com

_________________________________________________________________________________

                          Brazilian Tropical Fruit Program

Selected for Optimum Flavor, Texture and Aoma

"Palmer" Mangos, "Formosa" Papayas, "Golden" Papayas, "Pink" Guava, "Yellow" Guava, Avocados

QUALITY at its Best

Farmed in Brazil on >5,000 Ha (30 + years)

Multiple farms and plants for Guaranteed Supply year round

  

Packaging / Processing

 Global Gap, HACCP, Audited by BRANDAID Food

Exclusive Banding for BRANDAID Food Inc.

Packaged with Optimum Degree of Freshness

Pricing

Terms:        Order Prepaid 7 days in advance of Shipping (wire transfer) in $US

Freight:      Supply Logistics Optimized through Hapag-Lloyd or Kuehne + nagel Ltd.

                        World-class Supply Chain Expertise & Customs Clearance

                        Order Tracking & JIT Door-to-Door Delivery

Products

CONTAINER PROGRAM
PALMER MANGO 4.0 kg Size 6 - 12 ex Salvador, Brazil	22 Skids
FLY-IN PROGRAM
PALMER MANGO 4.0 Kg Size 6 - 9 ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids
FORMOSA PAPAYA 4.5 Size 3 - 4 Kg ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids
GOLDEN PAPAYA 3.5 Kg Size 6 - 12 ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids
Pink GUAVA 3.3 Kg Size 20 - 28 ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids
Yellow GUAVA 3.3 Size 20 - 28 Kg ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids
AVOCADO 10.3 Kg Size 16 - 20 ex Sao Paulo, Brazil	1-14 Skids

From Tuna To Tea, 'Greenwrapping' Makes Food Sustainable Beyond Ingredients

Here is an excellent article by  Jeremy Caplan on Forbes.com. 

Call it “greenwrapping.” From popcorn to peanut butter, from tuna to tea, the fancy food biz is increasingly looking to sustainable packaging to attract green-conscious consumers. Organic ingredients are no longer sufficient for green cred. What’s outside the product is starting to matter as much as what’s inside.

Tuna has made headlines in years past as a controversial catch, but now it’s the cans that are cause for conservationist’s contemplation. Metal cans use up more raw material than plastic pouches do, and they require more energy to transport. Now, Sea Fare Pacific is bucking tradition by packing wild-caught fish in sleek eco-friendly, BPA-free  pouches.

UPS​Voice: How A Company Recycles Ocean Plastic Twice The Size Of TexasUPS Guest@UPS

UPS​Voice:Shipping Chic: How Designer Packaging Can Deliver Function And Fun To CustomersUPS Guest@UPS

UPS​Voice: How Shippers Reduce Waste With Popcorn And Other Green AlternativesUPS Guest@UPS

Popcorn bags may seem inconspicuous enough, but they’re increasingly drawing scrutiny. It turns out that many commercial microwave popcorn bags are lined with PFOA, which the FDA labels a toxin. Other sketchy stuff in the bags ranges from plastics to Teflon, not to mention artificial butter substitutes. Into the breach Quinn Popcorn arrived with a Kickstarter campaign and plans to clean up the much-beloved snack.

Here’s how the Quinn founders’ site describes their mission: “First, we tackled the bag. Gone are the chemical coatings (PFOA, PFCs, Poly, etc.). We even pulled out the susceptor (gray metal/plastic patch). What’s left is a bag that’s made from paper and paper alone. Well, it is special paper that is pressed to make it grease proof. That wasn’t easy to figure out. Did we mention, it’s even compostable?”

Bags are bound for even more change. Pipcorn of Brooklyn is another new-style popcorn company selling mini popcorn made from hull-less kernels. It comes in hand-stamped, simple paper bags.

Even tea packaging can be greened-up. Numi now packs organic tea in biodegradable filter paper. And wine bottlers have gotten into the green game, too. Alternative Organic Wine commissioned a super-green wine bottle from The Creative Method, an Australian design firm. The resulting package — which won a 2012 design award from The Dieline, a leading package-design blog — was organic from head to foot. It included balsa wood, organic string and wax, and even organic inks for the bottle’s images.

Creative packaging comes in myriad shapes and sizes. Morning Ritual packs its organic strained yogurt with a bamboo bowl and spoon set, while peanut butter up-and-comer Justin’s uses already-recycled plastic for its jars.

Sustainability-conscious retailers looking to deliver fresh goods outside of their local markets face another challenge: how to ship temperature-sensitive materials without compromising their green ethos. Thermopod offers a solution in the form of biodegradable, temperature-controlled packaging made of recycled textile fibers. Thermopods come in crates and envelopes of varying sizes designed to protect everything from organic foods to chilled wine.

For organic food purveyors already focused on premium consumers with a discerning eye for sustainability, the recent wave of greenwrapping is just the start. A survey last summer by research and consulting firm EcoFocus found that more than two thirds of those who shop for natural and organic foods consider it important to choose foods packaged responsibly. Whatever they’re buying, they want it green.

RIP Cupcakes, Long Live Juice Cleanses? Inside The Fickle Food Trend Bubble

Check out this interesting article by Clare O'Connor on Forbes.com

Here’s a question for the ages, or at least for the next 36 months until a new eating fad emerges: If Carrie Bradshaw were still tottering around New York in 2013, where would the Sex And The Cityprotagonist meet her girlfriends for a nosh and some gossip?

“Carrie would be eating tacos — mini, gourmet tacos,” said Faith Popcorn, a futurist and marketing consultant. “Not Taco Bell. More upscale.”

Sugarfina: One Candy-Coated Startup's Plans For A Lucrative Exit -- But First A Trip To SpaceMeghan CasserlyForbes Staff

Billionaire Investors Gobble Up Twinkies: Hostess Snacks Sold For $410 MillionAbram BrownForbes Staff

'Oh Yeah!' Kraft's Kool-Aid Man Gets A Makeover And Facebook FriendsAlex KonradForbes Staff

Analyst Brian Sozzi, CEO of Belus Capital Advisors,concurred. “I feel as though she would be hitting up these cool food trucks that are popping up all over the place,” he said, adding that Bradshaw might tuck into a salad bowl at socially responsible Mexican chain Chipotle as a treat.

“It’s the anti giant cupcake,” he said.

The cupcakes Sozzi refers to are those made famous by Bradshaw and her Manolo-clad gal pals back in 2000, when the gang first stopped by the West Village branch of Magnolia Bakery to snack on Red Velvets.

Since then, countless cupcake stores have cropped up to fuel the craze, from home-baked mom and pop outfits to public companies like Crumbs Bake Shop CRMB +8.01%, which trades on NASDAQ and boasts 67 locations.

Then there are regional specialists with loyal followings, like Georgetown Cupcake in D.C., Sprinkles in California and Crave in Oregon. None of these businesses, Crumbs included, existed a decade ago.

This speedy proliferation is part of the reason why the cupcake bubble has now burst. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal did a deep dive into the industry, charting the rise and, it now seems, fall of Crumbs in particular. From its $13 peak in 2011, Crumbs’ stock has now sunk to $1.27.

Analysts and experts wonder if “gourmet-cupcake burnout”, as the Journal calls it, is really to blame.

“I never understood the cupcake thing to begin with,” said Nick Setyan, a restaurant analyst at Wedbush Securities who incidentally downgraded donut chain Krispy Kreme’s stock on Thursday, the day after the Journal story came out.

“With Crumbs, their expansion strategy was too quick, disorganized and franchise-heavy.”

For Setyan, the gourmet cupcake’s downfall is its price: upwards of $3.50 at Crumbs, Magnolia and many of their regional counterparts. “The big issue: people can bake cupcakes at home,” he said.

He also denied any link between the Crumbs exposé and Krispy Kreme’s downgrade, and predicted the donut industry will grow exponentially even as cupcake shops close their doors. 

“Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme have a tremendous opportunity,” Setyan said. “There’s such an untapped market on the west coast. They can still roll up mom and pop stores there. And they’ve been able to position themselves as everyday, breakfast items. A cupcake can cost $4. You can still get a donut for 40 cents, and a cup of coffee.”

Futurist and marketer Faith Popcorn doesn’t see price as part of Crumbs’ problem, nor the ease of baking cupcakes (“Eighty per cent of women work,” she said. “Do you know any women who have time to bake?”). She cited market over-saturation, but also the contents of the average gourmet cupcake.

“Have you seen how over the top these things are?” She said. “They’re calorie bombs — 500 calories apiece.” She said health concerns, including diabetes and obesity, are trumping the desire for a semi-regular indulgence like a cupcake for many consumers.

Carrie Bradshaw would no doubt be watching her weight in 2013. She’d probably have given up gluten. She may even have taken up juicing.

On Wednesday, the same day the Journal released its story on the death of the cupcake, the New York Times published a trend piece on the rise of cold-pressed juice, an industry growing in much the same way as Crumbs and co. did five years ago.

Faith Popcorn sees the person currently spending $75 on six bottles of BluePrint’s green kale juice as the exact same shopper who followed the Sex And The City girls into Magnolia Bakery a few years back, and not just because young women are trend junkies.

“It’s kind of their repentance,” she said, adding that she doesn’t really believe all these new juicing enthusiasts are as attached to their blenders as they claim.

“There’s this aura of health in juice,” she said. “People aren’t really juicing or detoxing. They’re just buying juice. It’s like hanging your clothes on a treadmill.”

She thinks the pricey juice bar may be here to stay, at least in urban centers, but that the next indulgent replacement for the cupcake is around the corner. She predicts gourmet grilled cheese and grown-up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as the next middle-class fixation. Both, like cupcakes, are tied to feelings of nostalgia, whether real or otherwise.

Analyst Brian Sozzi was careful not to predict the next big food trend, but he doesn’t think the bursting of the Crumbs bubble will dissuade entrepreneurs from setting up storefronts to take advantage of the cupcake’s winning qualities: high margins and a low barrier of entry to market.

“People have seen that they could charge Starbucks SBUX +0.95% type prices and make even more of a profit margin given ingredient cost deflation — and sit home to make the product, and market it on social media,” Sozzi said. “To them, this is win-win.”

Walk down Bleecker Street, Carrie Bradshaw’s old stomping ground, and you’ll see the cupcake’s successors: macaron shops aplenty, gourmet popcorn boutiques and a goat-milk ice cream parlor. And, of course, a fancy taco place. Says Faith Popcorn: “That’s next.”

Wal-Mart Vs. Amazon: World's Biggest E-Commerce Battle Could Boil Down To Vegetables

Here is a great read from Forbes.com.  Hope you enjoy it!Here is a great article and read.  Hope you enjoy it!

Wal-Mart Stores WMT -1.34% and Amazon.com AMZN -0.02% are both such enormous companies that there isn’t even a fitting cliché to clumsily describe their battle for e-commerce supremacy. There isn’t a David in this fight. If Wal-Mart’s Goliath, Amazon is Godzilla.

Wal-Mart's gunning for Amazon's customers away from the cash register, online.

Both chains dominate their historic areas of expertise. Once just a bookseller, Amazon is now the biggest online store on the planet. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer of any kind, its $469 billion 2012 revenues dwarfing Amazon’s $61 billion.

As J.C. Penney Battles Macy's For Martha Stewart, Experts Ask: Is She Worth It?Clare O'ConnorForbes Staff

How Jeff Bezos Makes Big Decisions At AmazonDrew HansenContributor

Who Pranked Alice Walton? Hoax Sees Billionaire Heiress "Supporting" Walmart StrikersClare O'ConnorForbes Staff

On the web, though, Wal-Mart lags. The Bentonville, Ark. chain doesn’t break out its U.S. online sales in its financials, but e-commerce chief Neil Ashe recently said the company aims to do $9 billion of its 2013 revenues on the internet. That’s 2% of its overall sales.

Right now, with Wal-Mart’s brick and mortar business booming, it might not matter much, but it will in five years, say experts at market research firm Nielsen.

According to Nielsen, e-commerce will gain more ground than any other segment of the retail industry by 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 11% each year. Supercenters of the kind pioneered by Wal-Mart come in second, with their growth rate projected at only about half that of web shopping.

Wal-Mart is doing all it can to catch up with Amazon online, copycatting some of the Seattle retailer’s most successful tactics.

They’re trying out lockers, one of Amazon’s hallmarks, allowing shoppers to order items online and pick them up in stores — crucial for the Wal-Mart demographic, a quarter of whom reportedly do not use debit or credit cards or even have a bank account.

They’re dabbling in same-day delivery and even going a step further than Amazon by attempting to crowdsource package drop-off among customers. They’re investing in web technology to improve both their site’s appearance and ease of navigation.

What else can Wal-Mart possibly do to win the web? Nielsen’s Todd Hale has one answer. “E-commerce is growing at 11% a year, but sales for consumer packaged goods online — food, groceries, everyday items — are more like high double digits, almost 20%,” said Hale, SVP of consumer and shopping insights. “This is the space Wal-Mart has to go after: perishable items. That’s where they need the infrastructure.”

Today’s Wal-Mart isn’t ready to sell fruit and vegetables online. Same-day delivery is still only available in a handful of states. Its grocery hub on the web, Walmart To Go Delivery, remains in beta.

Hale believes Wal-Mart should look to smaller regional businesses like FreshDirect and PeaPod as a blueprint as it rolls out its consumer goods delivery service. And he sees the big box giant’s site as a shoo-in future destination for non-perishables like diapers as long as its infrastructure allows shoppers to set up regularly scheduled deliveries, a service popular on Diapers.com.

Amazon is already a step ahead with its Amazon Fresh same-day delivery, currently available in the Seattle area but soon headed for California. “Amazon is already building an infrastructure for perishables,” said Hale. “Groceries will be the battleground coming to the forefront.”

Kantar Research vice president of retail insights Anne Zybowski agrees to an extent, but warns that Wal-Mart must make sure its web offerings extend outside the grocery aisles.

“It’s not one item at a time, it’s who wins the entire basket or shopping cart of consumables,” she said. “A big piece of the basket is groceries, but there’s also healthy and beauty care, for example.”

Zybowski added that Wal-Mart has made significant strides online in recent months, not just in prettying up its site but making shopping easier for customers who might not want to actually pay via the internet.

“They’ve improved inventory visibility — a customer can make sure an item is in stock by checking Wal-Mart’s site, then they can go to their nearest store to buy it,” she said. “The challenge now is to get people thinking of them as a low-price leader online and off.”

Morningstar MORN -0.65% director of consumer equity research R.J. Hottovy isn’t sure Wal-Mart’s infrastructure is what’s holding up its web growth but its enormous and growing network of brick and mortar outlets — 4,000 in the U.S. and counting.

“Wal-Mart’s done an okay job online, but Amazon’s done a great job,” Hottovy said. “They can undermine the price of a lot of their competition. Without a physical storefront presence and overhead, they can pass that savings directly to consumers.”

Hottovy added that Wal-Mart will have to do more than invest in infrastructure to win the battle of the web behemoths. They’ll have to woo customers who are loyal to Amazon for good reason. “Amazon has tied up price, convenience, sales, and good customer service,” he said. “That’s a powerful combination.”

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Amazon's New Kindles

1 of 9

Amazon

The New Kindles

On September 28th, 2011, Amazon introduced four new Kindles: At left, a basic Kindle with no touch screen or keyboard; At center, two new touch-screen models, the Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G (which includes a cellular data connection); At right, a new full-color tablet computer, the Kindle Fire.

They’re trying out lockers, one of Amazon’s hallmarks, allowing shoppers to order items online and pick them up in stores — crucial for the Wal-Mart demographic, a quarter of whom reportedly do not use debit or credit cards or even have a bank account.

They’re dabbling in same-day delivery and even going a step further than Amazon by attempting to crowdsource package drop-off among customers. They’re investing in web technology to improve both their site’s appearance and ease of navigation.

What else can Wal-Mart possibly do to win the web? Nielsen’s Todd Hale has one answer. “E-commerce is growing at 11% a year, but sales for consumer packaged goods online — food, groceries, everyday items — are more like high double digits, almost 20%,” said Hale, SVP of consumer and shopping insights. “This is the space Wal-Mart has to go after: perishable items. That’s where they need the infrastructure.”

Today’s Wal-Mart isn’t ready to sell fruit and vegetables online. Same-day delivery is still only available in a handful of states. Its grocery hub on the web, Walmart To Go Delivery, remains in beta.

Hale believes Wal-Mart should look to smaller regional businesses like FreshDirect and PeaPod as a blueprint as it rolls out its consumer goods delivery service. And he sees the big box giant’s site as a shoo-in future destination for non-perishables like diapers as long as its infrastructure allows shoppers to set up regularly scheduled deliveries, a service popular on Diapers.com.

Amazon is already a step ahead with its Amazon Fresh same-day delivery, currently available in the Seattle area but soon headed for California. “Amazon is already building an infrastructure for perishables,” said Hale. “Groceries will be the battleground coming to the forefront.”

Kantar Research vice president of retail insights Anne Zybowski agrees to an extent, but warns that Wal-Mart must make sure its web offerings extend outside the grocery aisles.

“It’s not one item at a time, it’s who wins the entire basket or shopping cart of consumables,” she said. “A big piece of the basket is groceries, but there’s also healthy and beauty care, for example.”

Zybowski added that Wal-Mart has made significant strides online in recent months, not just in prettying up its site but making shopping easier for customers who might not want to actually pay via the internet.

“They’ve improved inventory visibility — a customer can make sure an item is in stock by checking Wal-Mart’s site, then they can go to their nearest store to buy it,” she said. “The challenge now is to get people thinking of them as a low-price leader online and off.”

Morningstar MORN -0.65% director of consumer equity research R.J. Hottovy isn’t sure Wal-Mart’s infrastructure is what’s holding up its web growth but its enormous and growing network of brick and mortar outlets — 4,000 in the U.S. and counting.

“Wal-Mart’s done an okay job online, but Amazon’s done a great job,” Hottovy said. “They can undermine the price of a lot of their competition. Without a physical storefront presence and overhead, they can pass that savings directly to consumers.”

Hottovy added that Wal-Mart will have to do more than invest in infrastructure to win the battle of the web behemoths. They’ll have to woo customers who are loyal to Amazon for good reason. “Amazon has tied up price, convenience, sales, and good customer service,” he said. “That’s a powerful combination.”

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Amazon's New Kindles

1 of 9

Amazon

The New Kindles

On September 28th, 2011, Amazon introduced four new Kindles: At left, a basic Kindle with no touch screen or keyboard; At center, two new touch-screen models, the Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G (which includes a cellular data connection); At right, a new full-color tablet computer, the Kindle Fire.