Consumers' Food Choices: Implications for Marketers

Consumers' choices among foods today are influenced by a wider variety of economic and non-economic factors than ever before. These factors must be understood and forecast by marketers who, facing increasing competition in all markets, must prepare for, not simply react to, inevitable marketplace change. Economists typically have relied on four types of variables to predict food demand: consumer incomes, prices, population, and a miscellaneous category, often generalized as tastes and preferences. Examining the recent evidence, however, suggests that the observed relationships between consumption and traditional factors, while still important, are, by themselves, no longer sufficient, and that an understanding of the "other" factors is increasingly important. Incomes. Economists normally expect rises in consumer incomes to lead to greater spending. This is true for goods and services in total, as well as for specific products. That is, real per capita income rose steadily during this 20-year period, nearly 50 percent, and, as expected, actual expenditures for food generally increased. However, the allocation of income for all food products as well as for food at home decreased, not increased. The explanations for this are numerous, but, in general, are not captured by traditional notions of income-consumption relationships. Simply put, other things are changing. Prices. Supply and demand forces interact, producing prices that regulate marketplace transactions. Basically, increases in price are expected to reduce consumption and expenditures