Three-quarters of shoppers who have made changes to their food shopping in the recession claim that they will stick with their new habits even when the economy recovers.
The industry will have to accept that the grocery market will never go back to how it was before the economic downturn, the industry was warned last week.
IGD chief economist James Walton told delegates at the Re:fresh Conference last Thursday that “changes in the retail market that would normally take years to achieve are being compressed into a couple of months”, as consumers swap buying habits and switch between retailers like never before.
An IGD survey showed that 57 per cent of consumers had made a change to their shopping habits in order to make savings and, of those, 91 per cent found that their food experience was unchanged or had improved.
Walton said: “We have to expect that this new behaviour will be maintained. Who would go back? We need to ask ourselves as farmers and growers, are we just as agile as shoppers? Are we changing our output to fit what consumers need?”
But the economic downturn has failed to derail staple shopper concerns. IGD asked 1,000 shoppers what factors they considered in store and the “overwhelming” response was price, at nearly 40 per cent.
However, Walton warned that interest in price is not growing the fastest and that concerns about ethics and production values are increasing more rapidly. He insisted it is critical for industry players to listen to changing consumer needs or risk getting left behind.
He added: “Consumers are shopping for price, but they are not prepared to compromise on values. Now is not the time to take your foot off the throttle on these issues because shoppers will punish anyone who does.”
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