While Americans and Canadians both value convenience when it comes to snacks, consumers in the United States have a bit more of a sweet tooth, according to data on eating trends from The NPD Group.
In its 10-year eating trends forecasts, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD projected that consumers in the United States will grow hungrier for sweet foods, especially at snack time, while Canadians’ preference for salty and savory dishes will grow stronger.
The “Future of Eating” reports focused on meals consumed at home, but an NPD analyst stressed that taste preferences transfer fluidly from restaurant meals to home eating occasions.
“People don’t delineate much from what they eat in home and out of home, so the same behaviors carry through all occasions,” said Joel Gregoire, The NPD Group’s food and beverage analyst for Canada and co-author of “A Look into the Future of Eating – Canadian Marketplace.” “It’s important for restaurateurs to get a hold of the big picture of how North Americans are eating. Less than one-third of meal occasions occur in restaurants, but understanding how people eat at home has big restaurant implications.”
NPD spokeswoman Kim McLynn said the firm is forecasting a 20-percent growth between 2008 and 2018 of prepared foods eaten at home, representing an opportunity not just for supermarkets selling packaged meals, but for restaurants to augment their delivery and carryout platforms.
The big similarity between the markets in Canada and the United States is a need for convenience, seen in the growth of sales for “heat-to-eat” meals like frozen pizzas, canned chicken and pasta, and soup. Gregoire noted that, even while consumers in the United States are set to increase their use of heat-to-eat meals at breakfast and Canadians are not, restaurants in both countries need to have convenience offerings for on-the-go customers.
“The main reason why people go out to eat is for the convenience it offers,” he said. “Somebody else does the cooking and serving. Anything you can do to make that easier for their hurried lifestyle will resonate.”
Easy meals or items that can be consumed quickly on the go could boost a restaurant’s sales, he added, citing fruit, snack bars and yogurt as examples.
“Certain restaurant chains are starting to incorporate more yogurt into their menus, at a breakfast occasion or as a snack,” Gregoire said. “We could call this the food of the decade, because I don’t see any leveling off.”
Gregoire was not thrown by a growing preference for sweet snacks in the United States, but the Canadians expressing favor for salty and savory bites did surprise him, since Canada’s aging population likely would be more concerned with sodium reduction.
“There seems to be a dichotomy,” he said. “A lot of the growth in salty and savory snack foods is forecast to come from the baby boomer cohort. It’s a good example of when you’re basing analysis on data, it will challenge your preconceptions. We really see an opportunity for salty snacks, mainly chips with unique taste profiles.”
The trend could enable product innovation not just in side dishes, as with Wendy’s new Natural Cut Fries with Sea Salt, but also in desserts like a toffee-chocolate dish with sea salt.
Similarly, sweet items will only increase in popularity in the United States, even despite menu-labeling rules that mandate the posting of calorie counts, NPD projected. That’s where the importance of portion sizes comes in, so restaurants can offer sweet treats with less sticker shock, such as Starbucks’ new Petites line of desserts and Dairy Queen’s Mini Blizzards.
“Generationally speaking, all people are looking for smaller portions — it’s basically ‘everything in moderation,’” Gregoire said. “I’m not sure it’s limited just to snacking. I immediately think of sliders like a White Castle. They’ve become more popular up here in Canada, and more food manufacturers are making that move now.”
The report also found that consumption of salads, warm side dishes and center-of-the-plate proteins would increase in the next 10 years, at higher rates for American customers than for Canadian consumers.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
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