Food Focus: September Trends

Shortcut Ingredients, Basic Beverages and Health-Conscious Consumers

As consumers officially transition to fall, we dug into the data and insights in our recipe network of 5.4+ million recipes to determine what food and recipe trends will be popular this September. 

Looking at last year’s data, we see a return to routine with shortcut ingredients that make cooking and prepping easier, accompanied by basic beverages. Health-conscious consumers and families also turn to classic healthy food trends like gluten-free and vegetarian diets. 

Finally, we noticed that CPG brands and grocery retailers are beginning to prep for the holiday season this year, so we gathered some of our best resources to help provide insight into a season that may still look very different from years past. 

Shortcut Ingredients Dominate

September brings a return to routine for families and rise in the use of shortcut ingredients and prepared meals that make routine cooking and meal preparation easier and shorter during the week. 

Deli lunch meats, jarred pasta sauces, ramen and premade French bread loafs are all ingredients that showed increased recipe views (demonstrating purchase interest) from August to September 2020. 

 
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Health-Focused Foods

During September, we also see a focus on health through increased traffic to gluten-free and plant-based recipes, as well as higher purchase interest for healthy snacks. The top snacks are all easy solutions for on-the-go kids, families and individuals who have busy weekdays. Brands that can appeal to and offer solutions for consumers with busy schedules have a perfect opportunity to reach these shoppers through digital recipes. 

 
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The top snacks in our network from August to September 2020 are:

 
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Beverages Go Back to Basics

A return to routine also means a return to the basics in the beverage category. While these basic beverages always have scale in Chicory’s recipe network and hardly fluctuate because they’re so widely consumed, we see increased usage during September. From August to September 2020, each beverage increased in purchase interest by:

Coffee +1%

Soda +4%

Whole Dairy Milk +7%

Preparing for the Holidays

While shoppers may not be quite in the holiday mood this early in the year, we know that CPG brands and grocery retailers are already thinking about the upcoming holiday season at the end of 2021 and how to best prepare. 

In October 2020, Chicory conducted a consumer survey to identify exactly what the upcoming holiday quarter would look like for consumers, CPG brands and retailers. Major insights included:

  • 46% more consumers planned to use online grocery services for their holiday shopping in 2020 compared to 2019

  • 70% of consumers were more price sensitive when shopping for groceries

  • Quality (52%) was the primary consideration for consumers when choosing brands or products for their holiday celebrations

  • 17% of consumers reported that they would choose store brands over national brands last holiday season in order to save money

Next, while there may be a return to relative normalcy this holiday season, we know that consumers, brands and retailers alike are on alert for any sudden changes to safety precautions and national health regulations. So, we created this holiday playbook for brands and retailers to prepare for an uncertain holiday season, with food and recipe insights, as well as useful suggestions on ways to activate to influence shoppers during the pre-shop stage. 

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