Francis Parisien joined Farm & Food Care and Canadian Food Focus’s Winter Speaker Series on March 23, 2022 to explore the trends and forces driving Canadian consumers food consumption and retail food purchasing decisions.
NielsenIQ is a leading retail and consumer intelligence firm that measures shopper behaviours and analyzes the data to provide information on trends and purchasing behaviours. They do this through data exchange partnerships with most large retailers in Canada, including Loblaws, Walmart, Sobeys Safeway, and a large panel of Canadian consumers that they survey regularly.
Parisien’s discussion included analysis of which categories are growing, which are experiencing decline and what Canadian retailers are doing within the marketplace. He also explored the forces behind the statistics and how the COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to influence the market.
NielsenIQ tracks products like food, grocery, household goods and beauty in a category called fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Removing the spending peaks of March and December 2020 that were driven by fear purchasing, Parisien compared 2021 to 2019 to provide a sense of the rise in consumer spending. “We’ve actually added $15 billion dollars of additional sales in all Canadian categories. That’s massive,” he stated. “Nielsen has never seen a rise like that, ever, in Canada.”
More Key Takeaways
- The decline in restaurant attendance and increase in home cooking and baking pushed an increase in purchases in the categories of baking supplies, fresh meat and vegetables. Despite 62% of Canadians continuing to prepare meals at home, these categories are now beginning to decline.
- The plant-based food market is continuing to grow. There is considerable innovation in plant-based foods and a lot of attention being paid to them right now. Millennials are looking for plant-based beverages and dairy and meat alternatives.
- Inflation rates are the highest in food categories that NielsenIQ has seen in Canada in its 75 years of business. As a result, discount grocery stores (FreshCo, No Frills, Wal-Mart, etc.) have all seen an increase in market share and now represent 44.2% of the Canadian grocery market. They are doing particularly well in the produce and grocery categories.
- Inflation has caused increases across key categories like deli, meat and seafood and prices are expected to continue rising as we move further into 2022.
- Not only are regular market prices going up, but promotional prices are going up (meaning companies are offering fewer discounts). This puts more pressure on the consumer and 68% of Canadians say their normal weekly shopping costs more than it did six months ago.
- The sustainability and environmental impact were a key concern driving consumers food purchases in 2019 and is again in the top 5 attributes that matter most to them, post pandemic.
NielsonIQ has developed three COVID 19 recovery scenarios that could play out in the marketplace in 2022. Watch the full webinar for more information: