How People Eat and How It's Changing

[Toliver]

Food companies are scrambling to follow the "herd" (consumers):

"A Seismic Shift in How People Eat"

Consumers are walking away from America’s most iconic food brands. Big food manufacturers are reacting by cleaning up their ingredient labels, acquiring healthier brands and coming out with a prodigious array of new products.

The article also mentions the trend of pre-made fresh meals (as opposed to packaged and/or frozen meals). 

The Fresh and Easy grocery chain (now closing all of their stores and pulling out of America) featured a lot of fresh pre-made meals. All you had to do what take them home and cook/heat them. I'd say a good quarter of their store space was made up of displaying these meals.

Trader Joe's has their pre-made salads, sandwiches and meals. Granted, it's not a large selection but who knows what will happen if this trend continues? 

A generation of cooks is giving way to a generation of re-heaters.

[gulfporter]

The article reported a lot of positive changes....soda sales down 25% since 1998; sugar-laden cereal sales down 25% since 2000; major brands like Kraft dropping artificial dyes; and Perdue and Tyson limiting antibiotic use in their poultry. 

 

Per capita consumption of raw veggies is up 10% in the past 5 years...that's also good thing.  

 

Yes, the prepared food counters at grocery chains are popular and to me it's a roll of the dice as ingredients and caloric and fat content are normally not displayed.  

 

I know we eat healthier now that we're retired than we did when we both worked 50 to 60 hour weeks, as I also relied on pre-made 'fresh' food (usually from the local Costco).    Again, no real details on the label back then.  

 

It's good that other retailers/grocers are offering these ready-to-go meals as frankly, many of my co-workers were young, single mom's on very limited budgets and often they simply went to the McD's drive-in and ordered off the $1 menu after picking up their kids at day care.  

[Deryn]

I make and freeze dinners all the time, amazingly without any preservatives in them. It is very rare to find frozen 'dinners' without a very long list of 'beyond the basic ingredients it takes to make this exact same dinner at home' - meaning that those extras have some preservative function. Frozen foods don't keep for 10 years without those preservatives. Freshly prepared meals mean that there is essentially no longevity (unless of course we add 'preservatives' back and fool the customer into thinking the dinner was made today when it was made last week. Costs rise either way to compensate these companies for losing volume and longevity.

In theory if you remove the sugar and preservatives and process Cheerios less .. you have .. oatmeal! Not sure that 'less processing' is going to get many of these companies much of a sales bump.

This said, I found this article somehow rather strange. I think it was just the fault of the writers but I didn't feel they started with the right premise (as stated by the headline anyway) nor followed through on that very well. I am not quite sure what this article was really about in other words.

A few semi-relevant random observations:

a) The middle aisles at the grocery stores I frequent are definitely not empty yet - by a long shot. And I see a lot of junk food piled high in carts. And there is a LONG freezer aisle filled with nothing but different kinds/brands of pizzas, with overflow at the ends of the aisles. The next aisle is 'prepared frozen dinners' - 1/4 allocated to 'lean' meals and the rest 'caloric comfort' meals - with a teensy tiny area devoted to 'natural' (not necessarily organic) dinners at 3 times the price of the rest. Instant ramen packages disappear quickly. Canned vegetables and fruit don't seem very popular and it is still hard to find organic frozen veg except for a few basic kinds. I have noticed the 'premium ice cream' section has gotten smaller, the bagged ice section larger, and the crappy ice cream section even larger in my local NC grocery store.

b) The salad bar has grown in size (granted) and they have added olive/condiment/pickle bars and soup bars (filled with soups with no ingredient list but if you ask they will read them to you and these are not prepared on site believe me nor are they full of healthy ingredients in particular). People may be buying these things - but they pay a hefty price for them too compared to making them at home - and they are not as healthy or fresh as they may seem from the display. In many cases they are 'lunch convenience foods' for workers who don't pack their own and don't have time or money to go out for a full meal. It saves time - if you buy hot soup, you don't even need a microwave (or a thermos). But they are not necessarily 'better for you'.

c) I prefer to eat organic foods as much as possible but I have to say I am rather unimpressed with many 'organic' fresh and frozen 'meals' in that I find them often very bland/tasteless.

d) I do think people are reading labels more and companies seem to have responded by making the type smaller and smaller (perhaps in the hope people won't read too much and assume since the label takes up less space that fewer ingredients are used.)

e) I personally cannot fathom why so many packaged (and supposedly fresh) foods/breads need to have soybean oil (current cheapest oil but in the past it was corn oil - neither is good stuff!) in them when no recipe for a similar dish at home requires same. Yes, the same goes for sugars. New labelling will show 'added' vs 'natural' sugars so that may help get companies to reduce the extra sugar but consumers will take quite a while to habituate their palates to 'reduced sugar' foods.

f) Soda - hmmm are people using Soda Streams and the like to make their own? Perhaps some are drinking more water but I would question a 25% drop - though you are talking about a long time period there (almost 20 years) so possibly. I wonder how much of a drop happened in the past 5 years when there has been a heavier bombardment with Jamie Oliver, food shows, and constant news about what foods will kill you today (according to sponsored scientific studies for the most part).

f) Companies generally pay for store shelf space and product placement - and I still see a relatively small shift in placement of (truly) 'healthy' foods (as opposed to those just marked 'healthy') at eye level in my grocery stores.

g) It is the standard that a large percentage of 20-30something people will 'distrust' - particularly large companies - and particularly if asked to actually think about their viewpoint on that score. It is schooled into them from kindergarten onward - and they are in a rebellious period anyway. I think most of those, if unmarried and even if married, if living in larger urban centers, working and without small children, eat out or get take out 5-7 days a week. Many don't know their way TO the grocery store much less around it - in my experience. And are we talking 'the volume of sugar laden cereals' is down 25% vs the number of boxes sold? .. which I again might question because I know people didn't even realize for a long time that there was less and less cereal in a box that stayed the same price and most didn't bother to buy more to compensate - they may have just eaten a bit less without even realizing it.

I apologize .. I am always a cynic, always a skeptic. I just don't quite buy a lot of what that article was trying to say (or honestly even what or why it was trying to say it).

Edited November 12, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[Naftal]

Deryn- I am also a cynic. I am not impressed by a list of big names that fails to include one major player in particular.  I wonder if this issue effects ConAgra. For the record, I am aware that companies do not always state their connection to this giant, and some of the companies listed in the article may indeed be subsidiaries.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Naftal (log)

[GlorifiedRice]

 

^^Kinda too fast but interesting...the Chicken Ala King looked odd though

[GlorifiedRice]

In 1979, my Mother got a copy of the Pillsbury Kitchen Cookbook...I recall making the Zesty BBQ Sauce and thinking it was delicious. Thats 36 yrs ago and

I made it today and it was so nasty. How could it be so yummy in 1979 and so awful in 2015?

 

I calls for a whole lemon thinly sliced. Ill bet its the rind and pith,

 

UGH

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I understand the cynicism. I too know folks who rarely cook, and some who live on a steady diet of tasty (to them), but horribly unhealthy stuff, and never worry about it.

 

I also think that the behemoths in the agribusiness industry are being moved in the right direction by consumer demand. The younger generation grew up with the internet where it is so easy to learn about things, share information and stir up interest in and support for changing something, and very hard to keep dirty secrets. They are a demographic segment that is the darling of the Madison Avenue suits. Even if young people don't cook much, they still have to eat, and that is why companies like Amy's and Chipotle are sending shock waves through the corporate boardrooms. As always in America, it is all about the bottom line. I, for one, am so glad that things are looking way up for the health of consumers and the treatment of the meat animals raised for our tables. I hope the progress keeps up. I believe that it will. It takes time to get a morbidly obese cat like McD's, Monsanto or ConAgra moving, but I really think that it is too late for them to close the door on this, because that horse has definitely left the barn. It's a maverick they hate, but they can no longer ignore it.

 

For quite a while on most days, a news article or two about the movement for better, healthier food and better treatment of food animals comes across my radar. Some of them have been in the Wall Street Journal. Here's an AP article link from my local TV station in Raleigh from today:

 

http://www.wral.com/consumers-behind-accelerated-shift-to-cage-free-eggs-in-us/15105922/

 

As these better practices become more mainstream, I think the prices will come down too. 

 

I realize it will take some time, but I think the momentum is there at this point. I see progress daily, and I am looking forward to more.

 

Education and free access to information is such a beautiful thing! 

[kayb]

It's my experience that either more people seem to be interested in a higher quality of food, or I have gravitated more toward people who are interested in a higher quality of food. I see a great many more people buying meat, for example, directly from the farm, and produce from the farmers' market, rather than canned or frozen veggies or meat from the supermarket. I see the growth in farm-to-table restaurants, and in CSAs and food co-ops. I see more people gardening or raising backyard chickens.

 

But WalMart, which carries some of the poorest quality food I've ever seen -- I won't go there if I can avoid it -- continues to be one of top grocery retailers.

 

I know I'm willing to spend more for quality food, and I have friends who shudder at the prospect of paying $12 to $15 for a whole farm-raised chicken. But it's worth it to me.