As consumers seek comfort and escape from budget troubles, a renewed prevalence of home cooking bodes well for food marketers. In 2008, meals prepared and eaten at home rose to 242 meals per person, closing in on the 25-year high of 249 in-home meals per person in 1992, according to a report by the Center for Marketing Intelligence.

With trends moving away from restaurant dining, credit-crunched consumers are making dinners from scratch, preparing their own packed lunches and buying snacks for home consumption, according to Euromonitor. Consumers are also relying on private label foods to make ends meet: nearly 97 percent of all households consume private label foods regularly and more than half of all store brand food offerings are now used as the end dish.

This new do-it-yourself attitude has benefited food marketers in a variety of ways. There is a renewed consumer interest in packaged good sections offering foods considered "basics," such as rice, pasta, sauces and frozen foods. Home cooking has triggered a rise in cookbooks and recipe swapping. Some companies are also re-introducing low-priced comfort foods, such as macaroni and cheese.

And speaking of comfort and escape, apparently there's another way to "chip away" at the recession: tough times are increasing a craving for chips, considered a good value by many consumers. The market for potato chips grew 22 percent during the economic downturn, according to Mintel International.

These developments provide food marketers with new opportunities to adjust their strategies to meet the needs of consumers who are rediscovering many tried-and-true basics.

Sources:
  • Center for Marketing Intelligence, "Food Now: Eating and the Recession," CMI Brief, August 2009
  • Euromonitor International, "The New Era of Thrift: Changing Spending Habits in the Face of Recession," August 2009
  • The NPD Group, "NPD Finds Nearly Every U.S. Household Consumes Private Label and Store Brand Foods," April 21, 2009
  • FoodBusinessNews.net, "Salty Snack Sales Rise in the Recession," Sept. 28, 2009
  • The New York Times, "Food Brands Compete to Stretch a Dollar," May 11, 2009
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