IFT First 2024 live: Cargill spotlights key consumer trends driving F&B innovation as healthy indulgence proliferates
18 Jul 2024 | Cargill
Cargill’s marketing insights and analytics manager for North America, Keith Albright, talks to us live from IFT about the importance of understanding consumer behavior and trends in the F&B industry. He also shares insights from the company’s TrendTracker technology, such as the rise of healthy indulgence, plant-based foods and the recent pandemic’s impact on consumer food choices.
This is Missy Green with Foo Ingredients First at IFT 2024.
I'm here with Keith Albright who's an insights and analytics lead at Cargill.
Welcome, Keith.
Thanks, Missy.
Nice to be here.
So what is Cargill's trend tracker and what were some of the top trends that came out of it?
Good question.
Cargill uses trend tracker to, it's, it's really a combination of our proprietary insights combined with many of the vendor partners' points of view on what's driving marketplace behavior with our with our consumers.
We've been.
Doing trend tracker for about 5 years now and how we use it is we want trend Tracker to drive meaningful discussions with our customers.
When we go right to the ingredients that we sell or the ingredients that are in their food, it, it's a much different discussion when we start with what's driving consumer behavior and when when we really.
Get into what's driving that consumer behavior from a needs standpoint, what they're looking for.
It just makes the discussion so much more, I think enjoyable, but more so meaningful, and that's how we can contribute to the growth with our customers.
So what were some of the standout trends, the standout trends.
I've been tracking trends for over 20 years, so the, you know, you do have the basic macro trends of health, convenience, value, and experience, how each of those trends evolve over the years, that's what's really to me, that's what's surprising.
Obviously no surprise the pandemic accelerated, and really, the, the trends start to manifest in a different way, due to the pandemic.
One example of that is, the value.
Value is not defined only by price.
Value is becoming more and more important to what a consumer gets out of.
The food what a consumer gets out of what they're investing in that food, and they're looking to make those trade-offs and that to me the trade-off that's going on generationally by consumers and then the tradeoff that is going on category to category is fascinating to me.
A good example of that is in the plant-based area.
I might be seeking plant-based foods in one category very different than I would seek plant-based foods in another category, and they need to do two different things, and it's not just about being plant-based, it's what that plant-based food does to the overall experience do you have?
When we look at plant-based and how plant-based foods are used in dairy, it's much, much different than plant-based foods that are used in snacking items, so.
I like plant-based snack foods, salty snacks, but for me there might not be a, a substitute for a good old fashioned Cheeto.
So what we're seeing in the trends is.
I'm not going to eat as many or as big a portion as my go to snack.
The the the way that I'm handling it is the trade-off I'm making is I might decrease my portion in that and if I'm seeking to get more plant-based protein, I'm going to look for that in another category, so I'm going to up that amount in another category.
So it's really it really is about the.
How I approach, think about a shopper, think about how the shopper goes through the store, they're, they're looking to get those , those different solutions, not from a total store perspective but from a category to category to category perspective.
So you also mentioned about a generational difference in trade-offs.
Would you elaborate on that?
Yeah, the generations that we're seeing, one of the trends that stood out for me is the, the how.
The the younger generation is really reliant on social media.
That's not a surprise.
So we could have all predicted that, but I think what's what's coming true is how the younger generation is using social media to learn more about the brands that they purchase.
They, they expect the brands that they purchase to have the same values as them.
How they identify that is they.
Will go on social media and they will trust that as a source of truth, much more than the, I would say, Xers, certainly the older millennials, Xers, and of course the boomers.
The younger generations are going to be the ones that drive that continuous change towards using social media to get the voice out there, but not only get the voice out there, but to see that voice as true.
So the companies need to get behind.
