Bi-Weekly Chicory Recipe Trends: Week of 11/09/2020
The period from October 27th to November 9th, 2020 included major cultural and political events in the United States, including Halloween and the 2020 presidential election. Chicory’s shoppable recipe network indicated that more consumers celebrated Halloween through food than ever before.
The election, which quickly followed, also threw consumers’ eating habits for a loop as Google searches showed that consumers were stress eating, confirmed by our recipe trends.
Finally, we see that consumers are getting ready for Christmas early and bringing back family-favorite recipes, in efforts to spread classic holiday cheer amid this unpredictable and stressful year.
Halloween Was Bigger Than Ever Before
As predicted based on recipe usage trends in the weeks leading up to Halloween, the holiday in 2020 proved to be larger than in 2019, with a much more dramatic surge in visits to recipes. In fact, Halloween-themed recipes in 2020 had 123% more views compared to those in 2019.
Recipe Trends on Election Day
We mapped out the top recipes by state on November 3rd to determine if the election affected consumers’ food and cooking habits. By far, the top recipes across the nation on that day were indulgent German Butter Pound Cake and Mistletoe Margaritas. Google searches already revealed that consumers were stress eating (and drinking!) due to the anxiety surrounding election week and our top recipes confirmed that.
Consumers Are Thinking About Christmas Now
Top holiday recipes included many Christmas-themed snacks, as consumers turned to food for some holiday spirit--and a distraction from news broadcasts projecting presidential election state results and winners. Recipe engagement with Christmas recipes on November 9, 2020 were 18% higher than on November 9, 2019.
Some of the top viewed Christmas recipes during the past two weeks included Frosted Cranberry Drop Cookies, Mistletoe Margaritas and Festive Mint Cream Dessert.
This may also indicate a continuation of the trend in Chicory’s shoppable recipe network of consumers extending holidays and celebration occasions as a way to distract themselves from the COVID-19 pandemic. Views for Halloween-themed recipes were 9% higher than last year in the last two weeks of October. And earlier in the year, we saw similar trends with Easter and Mother’s Day.
Classics Return to Consumers’ Kitchens
In line with the emergence of Christmas and holiday-themed recipes on our list of top-viewed recipes is the resurgence of old-fashioned, familiar and simple classics like lasagna, chocolate cake and apple pie over the past two weeks. While these may already be in many Americans’ passed-down-from-grandma recipe boxes, recipe traffic trends indicate that consumers who may not have heritage recipes are now searching for pared down versions through digital channels. Potentially, the stress of a holiday season unlike others before, as well as the stressful presidential election drove consumers to the comfort of family-favorite recipes like they used to eat as children.
Further, we dug into the keyword family-favorite and found that these recipes are surging to top spots as well. We saw similar trends appear during the height of the coronavirus pandemic around March and April, as consumers coped with stress by indulging in hearty comfort foods, like chicken noodle soup and mashed potatoes.
Among the top classic recipes over the past two weeks are chocolate cake, meatloaf and pot pie.
Recipe Engagement and Online Grocery Activity
Small summer holidays showed only small surges in recipe engagement and online grocery activity. But Halloween 2020 indicates that the Q4 recipe surge, like we typically observe year after year, is gearing up to be the largest in history.
Recipe engagement on Halloween showed a clear surge in the weeks leading up to the holiday, starting at around the second week of October. In fact, recipe views on the week of Halloween outnumbered recipe views on the week before Halloween by 7%. And recipe engagement is sustained, as levels in the first week of November are still similar to the few weeks leading up to Halloween. Further, recipe traffic this year on Halloween outnumbered those on the holiday in 2019 by 88%.
More dramatic than recipe engagement, online grocery activity also surged to a months-long high on Halloween. The week of Halloween also had 7% more online grocery activity than the week prior, with activity on Halloween itself making up most of the growth. And this year had 40% more online grocery activity on Halloween compared to last year.
We predict that Thanksgiving and Christmas, the two largest holidays in Chicory’s shoppable recipe network will similarly greatly outperform recipe engagement and online grocery activity this year compared to last year.
For more news and insights from Chicory, sign up for our newsletter here!