Market Trend: Why Is Trust Diminishing with Big Food?

A Market Trend Can Shift Your Market Segments

A food market trend in 2014 was private labeling. In 2015, grocery stores begun utilizing grocery delivery or pick-ups. That same year, a U.S. Census Bureau reported that millennials, the demographic of young people born between 1985 and 2000 with the highest familiarity of emerging technologies in digital, mobile and social media, have outnumbered baby boomers by nearly 10 million. This growth has dramatically shifted the makeup of market segments.

In turn, this also influences how consumer tastes and preference dictate the market place. To illustrate, consumers are showing an increased desire for local products made by companies that are transparent, socially relevant, and flexible.

What is the importance of these trends? In a few words: they dictate the marketplace and how you can leverage your value proposition to consumers.

Transparency is a big trend in the industry that exists from local to national brands. On the flipside, Mintel reported that more than two in five US millennials agree that they do not trust large food manufacturers. Furthermore, about three in four millennials wish that food companies were more transparent about how they manufacture their products.

Big Food, the national, entrenched brands that have been on the shelves for decades, do not like change. Think of Big Food as an ocean liner within the food product industry, where everything is done on a massive scale and tradition reigns. One conspicuous flaw with ocean liners is that once moving, they are very set in their ways. They are slow to adjust when the weather shifts and sailing is no longer smooth.

Strike While The Iron is Hot

Capitalizing on the shifting undercurrents allows your brand to be front and center of new changes in consumer tastes. While transparency isn’t exactly a new trend, it’s one that has been emphasized for several years. Highlighting and promoting how your product is made will allow consumers to be the ones to evaluate and decide that your product truly is what it says it is.

But why should your brand try to take the center stage while most of Big Food presses onward? Because the growth potential exists. The USDA predicted that sales of locally produced foods will surge from $12 billion in 2014 to $20 billon in 2019. Local is a hot trend that does not seem to be losing steam.

Relaying the Message to your Audience

Get in front of them by communicating  in the channels they use the most. For example, if you’re targeting the millennial demographic, then you know from reading above that they are digital natives. They use a mix of social media ranging from Facebook to Twitter and everything in between. Integrating this in your communication will let your consumers know that you have nothing to hide and you are as genuine as you claim.

One thing you have to realize is that your audience is NOT solely the end user. Think of the retail buyers you’re presenting and selling to. How does this fit their POG? What trends are hot with their market? What are you doing to communicate with their store customers?

Presenting your products and spelling out that it is locally sourced because ingredients X, Y, and Z are grown from your very neighbors with zero GMO lets your retail buyer know you are communicating these attributes not only for them, but for their consumers.

Get on the Shelf

Once you are on the shelf, staying on the shelf is the other half of the battle. Make sure you’re navigating on or ahead of the curve by looking into shifting trends that may affect your product(s) and brand. Don’t become complacent either as it does not help you or your retail buyer, therefore hurting your partnership.

If you’d like to receive more insight, check out Moving Your Brand Up The Food Chain™, by my boss Patrick Nycz. Or drop us a line at NewPoint and contact us today to get on and stay on the shelf.