WATCH online
Phil Lempert, Retail Dietitians Business Alliance CEO, predicts 2020 grocery retail trends in a recorded 44-minute webinar. Known as The Supermarket Guru®, Lempert is an expert analyst on consumer behavior, marketing trends, new products and the changing retail landscape. He’s identified and explained impending trends to consumers and some of the most prestigious companies worldwide.
PBS’ “The Poison Squad” tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley, who was determined to banish dangerous substances from food and took on powerful food manufacturers and their allies (or read the book of the same name by Deborah Blum). It runs 1 hour 51 min and you can view it online until Feb. 3, 2023.
READ about these new datapoints
International Food Information Council’s plant-based 2019 survey of 1,000 adults found almost half have tried a meatless alternative with men doing so more than women, higher income more than lower income and those with a college education more likely than those with no such education, and the top reason to try meatless was curiosity about new foods. The Nutrition Facts label, not the ingredient list, influenced the reader’s perception of health.
The biggest vegan demographic is African American. A 2016 PEW survey found 3% of American adults overall identify as vegans. Look specifically at Hispanic Americans, and it’s 1%, but among African Americans, it’s 8%. And in a recent Gallup poll, 31% of people of color are eating less meat as compared to 19% of white people.
A new Tufts University study about eating out found that American adults get 1 of every 5 calories from restaurants but they are of poor nutritional quality. Researchers looked at the diets of over 35,000 adults for 2003/2004 and 2015/2016 using the American Heart Association’s 2020 Diet Score. For fast food, 70% of meals in 2015-16 were of poor quality, down from 75% in 2003-04; for full-service restaurants, about 50% were of poor quality in both time periods.
Some deep dive reading
Google’s engineering of their employees’ food environment looks at how free food at work changes the eating habits of its employees. It’s a large-scale, real-world test of how nudges can help people make healthier choices. It’s an interesting article about choice architecture, the downside of food studies and how what Google is doing can ripple out to other environments.
“Food movers: Confessions of an Instacart shopper” offers one person’s insights into online shoppers including picky customers and hard-to-find grocery items, and workers squeezed by Instacart.