Packaged Facts: The Future of Grocery 

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of consumer behavior and daily life. In 2020, many consumers were suddenly faced with more time at home.

• Office workers and those with jobs that can be done from home began to work from home full-time.
• Many schools and daycares closed, meaning that students and children were now spending their days at home.
• Restaurants, cafeterias, and other foodservice operations closed to dine-in service in many areas.
• With these changes, families across the U.S. were eating at home more often, cooking more, and sometimes feeding more people than usual throughout the day. As a result...

PLANT PROTEIN: Get to Know Players in the Plant Protein Market: The Better Meat Company

“Of course people like eating burgers, people like eating meat! We want to give people that same experience, just with a far more diversified portfolio of proteins. Whether that means it’s a blended burger, a plant-based burger, or a burger made from microbial proteins, we want to give people the experience of eating meat that people want, but with a much smaller footprint on the planet.” said Paul Shapiro, The Better Meat Company’s CEO, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, plant-based fish stick enjoyer, and animal lover.

With just three growth packed years in the industry and 16 employees, The Better Meat Company provides high quality plant protein formulations to major food companies for use in both blended meat-plant hybrid products and traditional plant-based foods...

Home Chef and Skinnytaste Team Up to Meet the Surge in Home Cooks' Demand for Fresh, Easy Meals

By all accounts, the pandemic-driven surge in home cooking is here to stay, which inspired Home Chef®, one of the nation's largest meal kit delivery brands and Skinnytaste®, the popular recipe and cookbook franchise founded by chef Gina Homolka, to join forces in making fresh, simple, delicious home cooked meals even more accessible.

In fact, both brands have seen their customers and communities grow exponentially over the past year, and with it a demand for a wider variety of lighter, more balanced meal choices.

"Home Chef has always wanted to collaborate with a partner who shared our values and ideas when it comes to...

Consumers Take Grilling and Outdoor Cooking to the Next Level

Eager for a change of pace during the pandemic, cooking outside has become a go-to activity for many consumers, and it extends beyond traditional grilling, or even the traditional grilling season. Consumers spent more than $4.9 billion on grills, smokers, camping stoves, accessories, and fuel in 2020, according to new Enhanced Retail Tracking Service information on the home improvement industry from The NPD Group, which blends retailer point-of-sale data with insight from NPD’s receipt-based Checkout information and additional data assets combined with advanced modeling.

“The need to cook more meals at home combined with the desire to experiment with new ways to create those meals helped fuel growth for almost all types of grills,” said Joe Derochowski, home industry advisor at NPD. “Layer on our cravings to be less...

ANALYSIS: Boxed Beef Cutout Surges at Record Pace to Start Year

Boxed beef prices have remained elevated to the start the year. In fact, demand has been...

Plant-Based Food Sales Surpass $7 Billion, Sales Up 27% in 2020

According to the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), U.S. retail sales of plant-based foods continued to increase by double digits in 2020, growing 27% and bringing the total market value to $7 billion. This sales growth was consistent across the country, with more than 25% growth in every U.S. census region.

In the past two years, plant-based food sales have grown 43%, which is nine times faster than total food sales. In 2020, about 57% of all U.S. households purchased plant-based foods, up from 53% in 2019 totaling 71 million households.

PBFA also found that the value of plant-based meat, while the second-largest plant-based category, hit $1.4 billion in 2020. That represents sales growth of 45% from 2019. The plant-based meat category grew twice as fast as...

Blue Apron Partners with Chef Roy Yamaguchi to Create a Hawaii-Inspired Menu

Blue Apron is partnering with James Beard award-winning Chef Roy Yamaguchi to bring his culinary expertise to kitchens around the country. Available to order starting today, the Blue Apron x Chef Roy Yamaguchi menu features Hawaii-inspired recipes, representing a blend of French and Japanese cooking traditions using fresh ingredients typically found in Hawaii cuisine.

"I am thrilled to partner with Blue Apron to shine a spotlight on Hawaii-inspired cuisine and its roots," said Chef Roy Yamaguchi. "In collaboration with their culinary team, we created recipes that highlight...

Meat Purchases and Confidence at Record Highs

Americans are buying more beef, pork, poultry, and lamb than ever as increased time at home during the pandemic sent meat grocery sales soaring by 20% (IRI) from 2019 to 2020.

The national analysis released shows that three out of every four Americans agree meat belongs in healthy, balanced diets (up by nearly 20% since 2020), and 94% say they buy meat because it provides high-quality protein.

Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts commented...

OZO Debuts New Line of Frozen Plant-Based Proteins Available Nationwide at Kroger

After making its debut in the refrigerated aisle last June with the launch of OZO™, Colorado-based Planterra Foods is adding to their portfolio by making it even more convenient for families to have delicious plant-based meals at home with the launch of their frozen line offerings. Available now, consumers can add the OZO™ Smokehouse Burgers (four-3 oz patties) and Original Breakfast Sausage (six-1.67 oz sausages) to their freezer, with more frozen products coming this summer, including plant-based meatballs and plant-based chicken nuggets and patties.

The pandemic has forced people to get creative in the kitchen, and these innovative offerings are the perfect addition to weekday meals or weekend grill outs, with the option to heat and eat or freeze for later. This year, as grilling season approaches and more families come together for...

American Food and Grocery Shopping Patterns have Changed One Year Into the Covid Pandemic 

Since the emergence of the COVID-19 global health crisis, 96% of Americans say they clean and disinfect their homes as much or more than before; nearly half (47%) are eating healthier and half are cooking more; and almost one in seven are watching more television as a form of self-care and snacking while they do it. These new or increased consumer behaviors have contributed to a 14% increase in American household grocery spending, according to NCSolutions (NCS), a leading company for improving advertising effectiveness for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) ecosystem.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, NCSolutions conducted an analysis of 12 months of its consumer purchase data as well as findings from a newly fielded...

Hormel Deli Solutions Launches New Brand Offering Consumers a Touch-Free Dinner Experience

As more consumers shop for touch-free meal options that are not challenging or time consuming to prepare, yet still deliver on quality, taste and convenience, retailers can turn to the Hormel Deli Solutions Group for the "perfect" selection. The new Perfect Plate™ products are made to make it easy for retailers to deliver what consumers are looking for in a touch-free, convenient meal while easing the back of house challenges that may come with prepared meal products.

"Our new Perfect Plate™ products were specifically designed for retailers to capitalize on this growing trend in prepared meal options, while eliminating the need for deli staff to assemble, or even handle the food before putting it on shelf," said Megan Ward, deli brand manager, Hormel Deli Solutions Group. "The Perfect Plate™ products offer...

From Animal Meat to Fungi, U.S. Consumers Tap into A Host of Sources to Get Protein into Their Diets

The want of more protein in their diets have U.S. consumers seeking the coveted macronutrient from a variety sources, reports The NPD Group. Protein, the nutritional counterpart to fat and carbohydrates, is considered the body’s building blocks, and can be found in a long list of foods, like seafood, meat, poultry, eggs, legumes, and vegetables.

In order to get more protein into their diets, consumers are availing themselves to all of these types of foods in addition to whatever might be the trendy protein of the day, like fungi, according to NPD’s Eating Patterns in America, an annual compilation of the company’s daily tracking of U.S. consumers’ eating behaviors away from and...

Foodservice and Retail Get Creative for an Unprecedented Valentine’s Day 

While the pandemic has caused disruptions to gatherings and going out, there remains a special significance around Valentine’s Day. Consumers are committed to celebrating the holiday, even if traditional celebrations must be altered. According to the National Retail Federation, about 52% of adults plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, spending a total of $21.8 billon.

Nearly three-quarters of consumers celebrating the holiday this year feel it is important to do so given the current state of the pandemic. The virus is still a focus, with 74% indicating it will directly impact their plans for the holiday. About 24% of consumers plan to gift their loved one with an evening out, the lowest in...

Impossible Foods Teams Up with Goldbelly to Launch the Impossible Foods Store 

Impossible Foods announced that it is launching The Impossible Foods Store on Goldbelly, a leading platform for food e-commerce, featuring some of America's top culinary trendsetters.

The brand-new store on Goldbelly features four Impossible™ meal kit offerings, curated exclusively for the site and now available for nationwide shipping, including...

National Restaurant Association Releases 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry Report

The National Restaurant Association released its 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry Report, which measures the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the restaurant industry and examines the current state of key pillars including technology and off-premises, labor, and menu trends across segments based on a survey of 6,000 restaurant operators and consumer preferences from a survey of 1,000 adults. The report also provides a look at the path to recovery for chains, franchises, and independents and the year of transition ahead.

Key findings regarding the impact of coronavirus on the restaurant industry include...

Mintel: Temporary Slowdown in Meat Reduction Trend as Processed Meat Sales Boom 

The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a temporary setback for the flexitarian movement, with the proportion of adults limiting and not eating meat dropping back significantly in 2020 according to new research from Mintel. But as the food and drink industry recovers from the pandemic, Mintel expects that momentum will return to the plant-based industry.

Veganuary may be in full swing, but according to Mintel, the number of Brits actively limiting/reducing and not eating meat in their diet has reduced from half (51%) of all consumers in 2019 down to four in ten (41%) during 2020. Meanwhile, in search of familiar foods, sales of processed meat products, including...

Tyson Introduces New Instant Pot Kit Options

"What's for dinner?" has taken on an entirely new meaning over the last year with more people cooking at home. New flavors of Tyson Instant Pot Kits, Tyson Instant Pot Seasoned Proteins and Tyson Oven Ready Family Size Kits are just what families need to ease the burden and cooking fatigue—protein-packed meals offering that made from scratch taste without the effort.

Cooking and preparing meals from home has increased 67-percent since COVID-19 began. After months of home-cooked meals, families are turning to prepared foods and easy prep meals as a way to...

FreshDirect Reveals Top Food Trends for 2021; Online Grocery and Home Cooking Boom to Continue

FreshDirect, a leading pure-play online fresh food grocer serving the Northeast, announced its top food trends for 2021. This year’s predictions were curated by FreshDirect’s in-house team of food experts. As food retailers at the forefront of the industry, FreshDirect has a unique and early view of cutting-edge grocery, ecommerce, and customer trends.

“As a leading online grocer, we have a unique and unmatched ability to understand the ever-changing buying habits of our customers. Our view on past orders, as well as those placed in the future, allows us to spot changes in trends quickly and react to them in real-time. The rapid increase in demand for online grocery and the boom in...

Blue Apron Launching ‘Wellness 360’ Campaign Showing Benefits of Homecooking

In an attempt to entice consumers to continue home cooking during the winter months, Blue Apron has introduced its “Wellness 360” campaign which will showcase how home cooking can benefit holistic wellness, including physical, brain, relationship, mental and financial health.

“As our community of home cooks continue to be increasingly focused on their overall wellness, we designed Wellness 360 to expand the ways in which cooking with Blue Apron can support them on that journey,” said Dani Simpson, Blue Apron’s Head of Brand and Marketing. “We know home cooking is more than making a meal. It has the ability to unlock a host of different benefits across aspects of one’s daily life, including reducing stress...