Chicory’s Bi-Weekly Recipe Trends: Week of 6/8
As we approach the mid-June mark, summer is officially upon us, providing us with a glimpse of the long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and which trends are turning into sustained habits. While many states have begun reopening, social distancing measures are still very much in-place and observed, staggering the United States’ return to normalcy.
In the two weeks since Memorial Day, we’ve been able to understand how grocery shoppers across the country are adjusting to a different type of summer. And while the places they go and the size of backyard BBQs in 2020 are to be determined, it appears as though the foods they’re cooking won’t look so different after all.
Recipe Traffic
As we predicted earlier in the pandemic, we witnessed a decrease in recipe usage as phases of reopening began across the country. And while we’ve seen 62% decline in usership since the high that was Easter 2020, views remain 105% higher than they were for the same time period in 2019.
The comparison to 2019 provides much needed context to better understand the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on consumers’ habits: Easter 2020 outpaced not only smaller recipe occasions like the Super Bowl, but also major holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Ongoing heightened recipe traffic indicates that consumers are remaining cautious about returning to their past routines, but that they also feel much more comfortable in the kitchen, with several new cooking tricks up their sleeves acquired while confined to their homes.
Ingredient and Recipe Usage
In the two weeks since Memorial Day, we’ve seen several summery trends grow among our audience. Shoppers continue to gravitate away from boxed and canned foods toward fresh produce and fish. They’re looking for ways to continue to have sweet treats without turning on the oven as temperatures rise. They’re heading into their backyards not only for cookouts, but also for making s’mores and they’re swapping bread baking for homemade ice cream making!
A Second Resolution Season?
Typically, we see an interest in sugar substitutes during the “new year, new you” timeframe (January), so the timing of this mounting consumer interest is unique and notable. Evidence of this shift can be found in the growth in interest in sugar substitutes over conventional sugar. Consumers are specifically seeking out recipes that include sugar substitutes, as opposed to searching standard recipes and then simply swapping in their preferred sugar substitutes. This may be a response to the indulgence we observed during the early weeks of the pandemic when cheesy casseroles, alcoholic beverages, and indulgent sweets were as popular as they are during the holiday season.
Sugar is always one of the top 15 foods in Chicory’s shoppable recipe network. Recipes that include sugar rack up about 50,000 views per day and as overall recipe views spiked on Easter, so did views on those that included sugar. However, as you can see from the chart below, sugar returned to its normal pattern following that spike.
While overall scale is lower, recipes that include sugar substitutes like stevia and artificial sweeteners have been showing sustained and ongoing growth in viewership across our recipe network of 1,450+ sites.
