To Cook, or Not to Cook: Exploring Today's Canadian Kitchens

A Kitchen Equipment Inventory and Pantry Audit Study

In today's environment there are some powerful motivators at work renewing the interest in eating more often at home. Whether driven by staying healthy, saving money or strengthening family ties, an increasing number of Canadians are trying to eat more meals at home.

Added to that, meals are also now being eaten later. Recent research from Ipsos' FIVE daily tracker shows that 50% of all Dinner Occasions are consumed after 7:00pm. Given today's hectic lifestyles, this makes the daily decision about "What`s for dinner?" a burdensome challenge requiring quick thinking within mere hours of the meal - or minutes. Our research goes on to show that 64% of all Dinner Occasions require less than 15 minutes of active preparation.

Adding further complication to daily meal preparation can be a lack of cooking skill and the requirement to have necessary ingredients on hand or readily available, in order to simultaneously serve something that both tastes good and is pleasing to a lot of people. For these and many other reasons, eating at home is no longer tantamount to cooking from scratch. In fact, our research also shows that an evening dinner meal prepared at home often includes items sourced in a ready-to-eat format, supplementing the home prepared items on the plate.

So what does this mean for the food industry in Canada?

On the plus side, given that consumers need to eat every day, the meal planning and meal preparation dilemma represents a key opportunity for food companies and retailers alike to expand the cooking conversation by offering consumers new and innovative ideas and solutions.

However, a confluence of many factors appear to be transforming pantry stocking behaviour, recipe usage, meal preparation and eating patterns which have the potential to create some risks for the future. This uncertainty can be mitigated by a relentless focus on the consumer.

Taking a deeper dive into the research with our latest research study, Exploring Today's Canadian Kitchens, we now have a better understanding of meal preparation and recipe usage habits together with an inventory itemization of the foods, ingredients and beverages stocked and stored in Canadian pantries, refrigerators and freezers. In addition, the research reports the incidence of ownership and usage of appliances, utensils and cookware that consumers' have on hand. By combining this information with insights on eating habits and attitudes mined from the Ipsos FIVE study, we are able to see meaningful patterns emerge, such as:

• Not only do 18-34 year olds have the smallest number of items stocked in their kitchens, they are also the least likely to cook from scratch. However, they are willing to try new recipes. 28.4% of Millennials use recipes to prepare beverages. Could creating a beverage recipe strategy leveraging options for healthy smoothies, trendy cocktails or cold coffee beverages be an entry point drawing more Millennials into the kitchen?
• Though 55+ consumers are most likely to use recipes and are heavy food and beverage pantry loaders, they have new and emerging needs based on changing lifestyles and the reality of looming health challenges. Increasingly, they look to home cooking as a vehicle for healthy eating. They report looking for recipes that both assist them in adopting and maintaining healthier eating habits together with assistance in cooking meals that adhere to dietary restrictions particularly pertaining to heart health. Is your meal solution strategy targeted to meet specific dietary needs of Canadian consumers?
• Quebec consumers eat the most meals at home and are also most likely to cook from scratch. However, interestingly, Quebeckers under-index for trying new recipes and 46.2% of them indicate knowing more than 10 recipes or more from memory, without having to reference any other source. Where do Quebec meal preparers most often source recipes and what needs drive recipe usage?

Conclusion

Overall, our research shows that in this demanding environment, a blanket approach for a meal preparation and recipe development strategy will likely not meet the varying needs of different consumer cohorts. Rather, developing a targeted strategy based on regional and other demographic needs/differences will be a pivotal component of a strategy to garner the attention of those consumers to try selected products.

About FIVE

FIVE is a syndicated research program that offers the most complete and comprehensive food and beverage consumer information in Canada. Based on its unique methodology, capture, coding and servicing experience, FIVE provides an accurate and unparalleled view of the food and beverage landscape that drives growth by delivering "One Source of Consumption Truth".

FIVE's daily tracking captures consumption behaviour and attitudes from over 20,000 individual consumers annually. This robust sample, coupled with the experience and expertise of the FIVE Team, ensures that key business issues are addressed with actionable insights to help subscribers uncover and capitalize on opportunities to grow their businesses.