Food Focus: January Trends

For eons, January has meant the official start of resolution season. Literally: the idea of resolutions is “thought to have first caught on among the ancient Babylonians, who made promises in order to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot”. But as consumer priorities shift, will these traditions hold? We dive into our recipe network of 5.4 million recipes to understand consumer behaviors and better guide CPG advertising for brands during this time.

Who’s Shopping?

So, what exactly does our audience look like?

What’s Trending

The question every brand wants to answer is, what’s trending? We pulled the top 15 recipes for the month of January year-over-year.

Across the board, consumers are leaning toward comforting classics. Certain contenders find themselves in the top 15 year after year: Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup, White Chicken Chili, Simple Taco Soup, to name a few.

At a macro level, recipe traffic continues to grow, +72% from January 2019 to January 2020 to be specific. And while recipe traffic in January 2021 dipped slightly versus January 2020 (-10%), traffic remains 54% higher than pre-pandemic 2019.

Not-So-Dry January?

Every year, when the bubbly runs out and the dinner parties die down, we all hear at least one friend say they need and will be taking a break from booze. However, as we look into our year-over-year data, it seems consumer purchase interest in alcohol doesn’t wane come January. After the anticipated spikes in consumption for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we see traffic level out to almost identical levels as pre-holiday.

So, we dove into non-alcoholic options for further validation. Non-alcoholic beverages don’t garner particularly higher purchase interest come the New Year. With the exception of a mysterious spike --likely attributable to football season-- on January 23, 2021, purchase interest in the product remains relatively steady, not only throughout the holidays but even well into the resolution season.

This isn’t to say that no one is indulging in Dry January, however, it is the perfect time for alcohol brands to meet consumers in the middle: promote low-calorie alcoholic beverages. Educate consumers on lower calorie, lower sugar concoctions they can make with your brand’s product.

New Year’s Diets: a Thing of the Past?

It wouldn’t be a January trends piece without addressing New Year’s diets. And while the ancient Babylonians may have been the originators of New Year’s resolutions, what is a little more contemporary is the idea of trendy specialty diets.

As the resolution tradition has stuck around, we check out how these trendy diets fare in popularity over time.

Comparing January year over year by keyword, it seems that none of these diets have grown over the last two resolution seasons. Why? Given the other things at hand in January 2021, New Year’s diets were certainly not top of mind for consumers as they may have been in the past. After a year of so much being taken away, why deprive ourselves further?

While there will always be those who use the New Year as reason to reset, brands should without a doubt be looking beyond the diet circuit when it comes to targeting. Decreased interest in these diets is encouraging for all brands: whether Paleo or pasta, January is any brand’s playing field.