The NPD trend spotter

Our resident NPD expert, Susan Willis, predicts the next big thing.

In a report in The Grocer magazine discussing the shift in demographics for the 21st century, Nick Hughes, Senior Features Writer, said:

“Representing 34% of the UK population, the over-50s account for 80% of the UK’s disposable wealth and 51% of UK grocery spend in the year to September 2008. And they’re the most recession-proof shoppers around, according to a recent IGD report, The Golden Generation.” (Hey big spender by Nick Hughes, 14 March 2009).

We have a massively ageing society and the over-50s are one of the fastest growing markets. The most important trend for the foreseeable future in NPD is to rise to the new challenges these consumers will undoubtedly bring, and to meet their demands.

The major multiples are, so far, guilty of not recognising the growing needs of the over-50s and have targeted the family market. These two demographic groups obviously have very different needs and demands.

The whole shopping experience needs to be addressed differently which will undoubtedly mean changes for food manufacturing suppliers and their NPD & packaging teams.

The issues which need to be tackled are:

• The over-50s are not interested in promotional tools, i.e. 3-for-2s, or bogofs – they’d rather spend the right amount of money and not waste food.
• Large portions of perishable foods are wasteful and they would rather have smaller portions and single sizing.
• The accessibility of food products poses a particular problem – jars and cans in particular.
• Many more products need to be developed for people suffering with health complaints, i.e. diabetes and dementia.
• The over-50s would much rather buy local and regional products. Over a third of consumers choose their store depending upon the availability of local products. We trail behind the rest of Europe in this trend.
• Supermarkets need to have adjustments with the over-50s in mind, i.e. wider and clear aisles, shopping baskets with long handles or on wheels.
• Labelling is a major consideration. The majority of over-50s complain that the font size on cooking instructions and ingredient declarations is too small and colour schemes are not effective.

My mother, Mary, a 76-year-old shopper agrees with the list and especially the wastage of perishable food in large sizes, “The majority of my age group all lived with rationing during the war and there were times when we were hungry. That’s probably one of the reasons why we cannot abide to see food wasted,” she said.

Therefore, it is up to NPD and packaging departments to start forward planning for all their new product lines to be launched in an extra smaller size / servings. It may also be beneficial to do cost exercises on all their established lines in production, to possibly re-engineer these products.

Some of the market leaders have already started. Last month, Waitrose launched a smaller tray of eggs with four in, rather than the six and twelve standard trays. They have also increased their range of wines in 25cl and 50cl bottles by more than 50%. A change in colour of their nutritional summary bar and an increase in the font size of cooking times have already taken place. Arla Foods has just launched a 50gm pack of Lurpak butter and Marks & Spencer has launched single-serving packs of pre-prepared vegetables and smaller loaves of bread. And, Tesco is planning to build the UK’s first pensioner-friendly store in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

The importance of these consumers is only going to increase over the next 20-30 years, as is the number of people who have problems opening food products and have impaired vision. To develop easy-open products will of course be more costly, therefore, the reservation from manufacturers and retailers at this stage is understandable, but, if it means that the over-50 consumer will buy the product, then the message is clear.

The last important consideration for manufacturers in the current climate is that the over-50s are the most recession-proof group of shoppers we have . Over half of this group are well protected, they are generally retired with secure pensions, plus savings and have few debts. One of their biggest assets is their tendency to remain loyal to high quality products. Surely this spending power must place them high on the list of importance to the retailers and arguably we should be doing more to meet their demands.