Your pantry can reveal your age, social circle, and even how confident you might be feeling about the economy
- Hormel Foods is used as cultural anthropology To gain deep visions of consumers’ lifestyles by analyzing their stocks and food habits, and helping the company to remain ahead of cooking trends and consumer behavior transformations. With the growth of economic uncertainty, Hormel believes that the store is a source of comfort and emotional security for all levels of income, which makes its products necessary for practical needs and expressing the cultural self.
Tucked in cabinets and buried in freezers are quiet evidence about home habits. They not only reveal what people eat, but who are – ages, hobbies and relationships, and even to what extent they will go on the cooking adventure.
To Hormel Foods’, the world of internal cultural anthropology, Tayna Rodriguez, these elements draw a rich image of advanced consumer behavior.
From long foodstuffs such as random mail – now something from world favorites – to newer products such as Justin’s and Hormel Gathings, Fortune 500 The company uses store notes to predict food trends. Objective: beating the peak demand, not chasing that.
At the time of the escalation of economic stress, that insight was not more important.
Ramin or pasta?
Rodriguez has provided its anthropological experience in Hormel – a company of more than $ 16 billion – for nearly two decades. You visit customers in their homes to understand their “functional and emotional” prayers with food.
This starts at the moment when Rodriguez arrives at the doorstep: “I will sit with you for a while before we go to the kitchen. I want to see your photos, what kind of things you have at home, if you are a hunter, you may have some awards, I want to see what is going on around it.
After this “grounding” context, Rodriguez begins its search for the largest gifts.
Explain to luck. “Did you get spices and spices? You can learn a lot there. Do they have more strange spices, or is it salt and typical pepper?
Then suddenly I see the random mail, and I see the fish sauce. I see more than strange – perhaps some Asian elements – and I love: “Tell me what you are doing with this. “Suddenly, this random mail can take them to Asia and a Korean experience … and they are like:” I love Korean food and I am in Korean dramas as well, “then gets an idea of their knowledge globally.”
Rodriguez added that the ages imposed on age can be referred to through the type of starch: “For older generations, you will see the pasta, but for the younger generation, you may have Nodel Odon [or] Traditional Ramin. So there can see the difference from where [they] You want the same, but how it is really delivered. “
Rodriguez said that it also differs in the general levels of the stock in its stock levels, saying that although young generations have “healthy” quantities of goods, they have been coordinated towards some cooking patterns, unlike all this circumstances.
Products also took a new rental contract for life in order to compliment the cultures that are increasingly mixed through family relationships and friendships, and Rodriguez added, for example, to Hermel Chile, which is often purchased by Spanish clients.
But with the vision of Mexican food in a popular increase in certain parts of the country, Rodriguez continued: “Now you see other consumers who are not a heritage of Spanish origin who say:” I can create inchlada at home, “or they learn to make Chilaquiles and go,” Wait, I can put messages on hardness. ”
Eating experiences
Research has suggested that older generations can generally boast of high food experiences, especially since the epidemic, While younger youth enjoy luxury elsewhere.
For example, a study last summer from Bank of America found that consumers all over the spectrum are increasingly choosing eating in more suitable and less expensive institutions, with General Zires less likely to eat in premium restaurants.
On the contrary, the MCKINSEY survey and the company found that the grocery was the top spending of Gen Z and Millennials, categories that exceeded travel, fitness, clothes and cosmetic purchase.
“Consumers want this experience that will help create memories or even transfer them to the memories of nostalgia,” explained by Lisa Cell, Vice president of Brand Wood, Hormil Mercury Consumer Center.
“The other part is that it allows them with a little flexibility and freedom to show their personalities – we see many social media interference, and the participation of culture through groups of friends and family groups as well. It is a way for them to experience culture without the need to necessarily travel or go out to eat.”
While the millennium generation told MCKINSEY their focus on grocery stores because of the children’s birth, Gen Z said because it was because they enjoyed boasting of the elements of the condition such as snacks and drinks.
Hormel is keen to take advantage of this experience at home. For example, when the pizza trends are seen, it defines hot honey and mortadella (Italian sausage also contains pistachios and black pepper) as two components that can easily move from luxury menus or restaurants to regular store elements.
“Consumers have always been walking this path of extending their dollars and making bites, so it’s not necessarily something new.” luck.
“We see some different patterns … we see more sauces and spices in homes, for example, and I think much of that is because of this [want for] expertise.”
Store security
Economic uncertainty is one of the main risks facing every large company at the present time, with the permission of a melting crucible from the customs tariff policy, high inflation expectations and consumer that is beaten due to the high cost of living since the epidemic.
The financial health of shoppers is a special concern for consumer giants such as Hormel, and it appears that the public has begun to respond to the dark financial view.
The bank of the American America’s card revealed last month that home spending decreased by 2.3 % on an annual basis (YOY) in February, compared to a 1.9 % increase on year in January. As a result, economists expect shoppers to see new behaviors such as targeted purchases in different stores and “trading” on elements to more budget options.
This tracks with data collected by different branches of the Federal Reserve. For example, the Federal Reserve in Saint -Lewis tracks about five years of inflation for approximately 2.2 %. Meanwhile, the latest FBI research in New York was found to be inflation for consumers over the next 12 months by half a percentage point to 3.6 %, indicating that shoppers are preparing for short -term pain.
Moreover, the Federal Reserve in New York also found that consumers’ expectations for their financial situation were at its worst in March since October 2023, where you expect 30 % to be worse in 12 months.
Hormel believes that she has answers to the challenges of her customers. Rodriguez says consumer anxiety drives the audience to search for a “safe space”.
“I will ask people,” when I say a store, what do you think? “She added that she will hear words that really resonated with security, it is a place that people may not feel very not felt, but it makes her feel safe.”
Rodriguez added: “You can go to something like SkipPy. This is a sense of the product [peanut butter] This is very versatile, you can access a sandwich, you can reach a snack, you can just get a spoon, and you will provide this joy, that satiety, these meaningful feeding, and feel that I need something delicious. “
Although cards data show that low -income consumers are more intelligent than those who have more income that can be eliminated, this is not necessarily related to negative expectations for the economy: “The beauty of the store is that it attracts everyone, every level of income buys products for the store.
“From a high -income perspective, it may be due to comfort, diversity and entertainment. It may also be healthy and well -being if you think about products like Skippy and JUSTIN’s.
“But also low -income, when you think of the safety of nutrition or the budget extension, and the ease of preparation for the meal. Everyone has a role that the store plays in their lives, and it may not always be related to the most value that I can find, but this comfort that people find in some foods. This is why they choose a specific brand – they may not pay the lowest amount of money, but they excite them.”
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
2025-04-18 10:00:00
