Today’s Foodservice Landscape Remarkably Different from 20 Years Ago
25 March 2015Two decades ago, dining out was primarily a special occasion. Today, it’s part of daily life for all Americans. But what differentiates the prepared-food-away-from-home choices of a “foodservice hobbyist” and an “affluent socializer”? Technomic offers an in-depth view of the current consumer foodservice landscape.
Technomic’s New Consum4Sight Group gathered data points from 81,870 consumer foodservice occasions over one full year to reveal a look ahead at the 2015 landscape. One surprising pattern: More than half of eating-out occasions are unplanned or decided on impulse. At 53% of all dining occasions, the frequency of “eating on the fly” accounts for more than twice as many routine occasions (25%); special occasions account for just 22% of dining occasions.
“These numbers quantify a trend Technomic has been following for decades,” said Sara Monnette, senior director, Consumer Insights & Innovation at Technomic Inc. “Twenty years ago, most dining—even taking the kids to a burger chain—was still a special occasion. Now it’s a function of our daily lives, it’s increasingly casual, and it’s far less regimented than the past days of home meal planning and preparation.”
A closer look at dining-out occasions shows that the most frequent are family affairs, with 20% described as a “meal or snack with the family” and most often occurring at a midscale or traditional casual-dining restaurant. A look at the median spending per occasion finds that most come in below $20, with a $6 convenience-store or QSR stop being the lowest spend, and a special occasion at an upscale or contemporary casual-dining restaurant being the biggest splurge at an average of $25.
Regardless of the occasion, open and agile menus are in order. More than half of consumers want customization and transparency on the menu, and 70% want to feel good about their food choices, whether grabbing a snack from a food truck or fresh prepared foods from a convenience store, which 37% of respondents reported doing about once a month.
Even in today’s foodie age, fully one-fifth (20%) of the U.S. population views food as fuel, and are known as “functional eaters.” They’re mostly young male Millennials in the lower-income bracket and make up the second-largest group in terms of the percentage of foodservice meals purchased. Cost value and low price count highly for this group. Meanwhile, the group that dines out the most—“busy balancers”—are usually female Millennials with higher incomes. “Habitual matures,” older Baby Boomers with low or fixed incomes, dine out least, and their choices are driven by convenience and price. They’re further distinguished by strong loyalty to a small number of foodservice locations.
Learn more about the various consumer groups and their dining habits, as well as prevailing trends, by downloading Technomic’s New Consumer Wall Chart. Click here to download.