Consumer Trends – July/August 2022
Cabbage was the new lettuce for KFC in most of Australia after floods caused a lettuce shortage.
Healthy meals with no stress, less mess
The popularity of sheet pan dinners – that you roast in the oven in just one tray – has exploded in the US as consumers seek convenient ways to prepare healthy meals. Produce provider Dole plc is tapping into this culinary trend with DOLE® Sheet Pan Meal Starter Kits featuring fresh ready-to-roast vegetables with a paired seasoning. Available in 3 flavours: Homestyle Roasted Herb, French Onion, and Lemon Parmesan.
Get kids eating smart from the start
Help little ones form a lifelong positive relationship with food, cultivate healthy eating patterns, and create a willingness to try new things. That’s what New York-based Tiny Organics aims to do with its veggie-forward meal delivery service for babies and toddlers, a partner in Michelle Obama’s ‘Veggies Early and Often’ campaign. Research shows the more flavours and textures you try in the first two years of life, the more likely you are to be an adventurous eater. Meals start at US$4.66 each.
Would you like some cabbage with that?
Cabbage was the new lettuce for KFC in most of Australia after floods caused a lettuce shortage. “We’ve hit a bit of an Iceberg,” the food chain said in June about the temporary need to use a lettuce/cabbage blend for products containing lettuce. “We appreciate you all being Little Gems as we work to get things back to normal ASAP,” it said.
“Given the choice, we know that farmers and growers would much rather get their unsold surplus food to people, rather than see it go to waste. But there’s still more than two million tonnes of edible produce thrown away in the UK each year.” – Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare, which in June won the 2022 Environment & Conservation Charity award for its Surplus with Purpose scheme.
Gene-edited leafy green nears US launch
A new mustard green is slated to hit US grocery store shelves in 2023 in the form of a packaged salad. Called Conscious Greens, it will be the first product from Conscious Foods, a new brand from gene editing tech expert Pairwise, which describes the product as a nutrient-dense, leafy salad green that’s less pungent than what’s currently available. Pairwise is also developing seedless blackberries, black raspberries, and pitless cherries.
Making the exotic more accessible
Kooky is a new brand formed by two exotic fruit lovers who want to bring flavoursome, low-calorie super fruit snacks to the UK market. The result is the Kooky Fruit Snacks range including freeze-dried jackfruit, mango and mangosteen, and gently dried banana and dragon fruit. Sustainably sourced in Thailand and naturally dried with nothing added, the snacks are 100% fruit.
Fresh food for people in need
Providing boxes of fresh produce to families that face access barriers to affordable, healthy and sustainable food – that’s the idea behind Good Food for All, a Partnership for a Healthier America program. Now spanning 28 US cities, the program provides recipients with 50 servings of produce to feed their families per week, for 12 weeks, in an effort to improve food equity in communities in-need.
Key numbers
5.6% YoY rise in Chile’s lemon export volume to a total of nearly 102,000 tons in the 2020/21 marketing year (Apr-Mar)
323 vessels now part of Green Marine Europe’s voluntary environmental certification program for the maritime industry.
£516: How much more a UK family of 4 will pay for food next year if prices rise 10.9% this year as analyst IGD expects.
