The recession is expected to spur on consumers to seek out potatoes as one of the food staples that are good value, versatile and filling, new research has shown.
The results of a study on the changing consumer perception of potatoes by the Oxford Partnership were revealed at the Potato Council-led conference, SMashing the Credit Crunch, last Tuesday.
Directors Nick Cole and Colin Boxall put together messages for the sector to build on, including the strong recession-proof concepts of scratch cooking and buying British, as well as reinforcing the notion that spuds can feed a family as a staple on the dinner table.
The findings, based on qualitative analysis from months of focus groups across the UK, showed that shoppers are changing their buying habits in an attempt to cut their spending.
Cole told the floor: “The effect of the recession is both financial and psychological. It is no longer an abstract theory, but something that affects us all… The recession has given consumers permission to change their behaviour.”
He said shoppers are trading down from retailer to retailer and from premium to value ranges. They are shopping more tactically and either cutting back to one weekly shop or doing smaller shops every day.
The Oxford Partnership study indicates that priorities have evolved from the time of the last survey in 2007, when consumers were looking for health, convenience, indulgence and value in equal measure. Now, value is at the top of the list and indulgence is in the background.
The “lipstick effect” will see consumers continue to trade down to smaller luxuries, such as restaurant-style home-cooked meals or takeaways, while spontaneous purchases will be replaced by planned shopping.
Mintel research shows that 41 per cent of consumers claim to always cook from scratch, which is more than double the figure it was five years ago.
Boxall said: “There are products out there that do not fit the recession well, but potatoes do not have this issue and with a successful marketing and communications campaign, there is no doubt that they can thrive in the recession.”
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