`As Most Consumers Find Ways to Cut Costs, Olive Oil Consumption Trends Higher - Olive Oil Times
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As Most Consumers Find Ways to Cut Costs, Olive Oil Consumption Trends Higher

By Paolo DeAndreis
Apr. 6, 2022 17:56 UTC

Many con­sumers are adjust­ing to the ris­ing cost of goods and ser­vices glob­ally. They do so by chang­ing con­sump­tion habits and focus­ing on more con­scious pur­chas­ing choices.

According to the lat­est quar­terly sur­vey con­ducted by Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four global account­ing firms, 52 per­cent of 18,000 respon­dents exhib­ited dimin­ish­ing con­sumer con­fi­dence and are being affected by grow­ing eco­nomic uncer­tainty.

Power isn’t just shift­ing from employ­ers to employ­ees and older to younger gen­er­a­tions. There’s also a change in the power dynamic between brands and con­sumers.- Kristina Rogers , global con­sumer leader, Ernst & Young

As a result, 60 per­cent of con­sumers plan to reduce their expenses, while 39 per­cent have already begun to save money by cut­ting back their pur­chases.

The higher prices impact all social classes, with 62 per­cent of low-income earn­ers report­ing that it sig­nif­i­cantly affects their pur­chas­ing choices. Meanwhile, 48 per­cent of mid­dle-income and 42 per­cent of high-income earn­ers said their pur­chas­ing choices are affected.

See Also:Europe’s New Sustainable Ag. Policies Will Make Food More Expensive, Farmers Warn

The sur­vey sug­gests 30 per­cent of con­sumers are now spend­ing less on alco­hol, with 20 per­cent look­ing to cheaper alter­na­tives for fresh food and 18 per­cent for pack­aged food.

Despite con­sumers seek­ing cheaper alter­na­tives, data from the International Olive Council show that olive oil con­sump­tion has grown steadily over the past five years. Retailers in the United States, the third-largest olive oil con­sumer, remain poised for this trend to con­tinue.

In many coun­tries, con­sumer choices are moti­vated by val­ues such as ​“planet first,” which 26 per­cent pri­or­i­tize over afford­abil­ity (24 per­cent). According to Ernst & Young, 32 per­cent of respon­dents in China and Brazil put the planet first when choos­ing a pur­chase.

“Health first” is pri­or­i­tized by 19 per­cent of respon­dents. Sustainability is also tak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant share of con­sumer atten­tion.

“Consumers are choos­ing to make more sus­tain­able pur­chases, doing what they can to pre­serve their envi­ron­ment, with 56 per­cent say­ing they will pay more atten­tion to the envi­ron­men­tal impact of their pur­chases and 52 per­cent com­mit­ting to pay more atten­tion to the social impact,” the report said.

One of the most rel­e­vant trends the report shows is con­sumers’ grow­ing inter­est in expe­ri­ences, as their inter­est shifts from ​“hav­ing” to ​“doing,” with pro­duc­ers and resellers chal­lenged to find new approaches.

Forty-five per­cent of respon­dents said they plan ​“to live more in the moment.” According to the sur­vey, par­tic­i­pants are tran­si­tion­ing to the next nor­mal after two years of restric­tions to curb the Covid-19 pan­demic and are more eager to take part in new expe­ri­ences.

“Power isn’t just shift­ing from employ­ers to employ­ees and older to younger gen­er­a­tions,” said Kristina Rogers, Ernst & Young’s global con­sumer leader. ​“There’s also a change in the power dynamic between brands and con­sumers.”

“As peo­ple spend more time at home and offline, they are becom­ing harder to reach than ever,” she added. ​“Brands will need to work much harder to be in the right place at the right time with the right mes­sage. Consumers are more dis­cern­ing than ever, which makes it more dif­fi­cult to cap­ture and hold their atten­tion, and they are chang­ing the way they engage with brands.”

While 39 per­cent of con­sumers are less eager than in the past to be involved in activ­i­ties out­side of their home, 36 per­cent are inter­ested in vis­it­ing stores only when offered rel­e­vant expe­ri­ences.

The report sug­gests the cre­ation of new oppor­tu­ni­ties to those that reach their clients in novel ways; still, ​“the types of expe­ri­ences that will appeal most to con­sumers are easy to access and require a min­i­mal time invest­ment,” Rogers said.

“Despite an eco­nomic uplift in many coun­tries since the pan­demic, con­sumers are not opti­mistic about their future due to ris­ing infla­tion, fun­da­men­tal changes in their work and per­sonal lives, and a grow­ing unease around cur­rent global geopo­lit­i­cal issues,” she con­cluded.

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