New Zealand Trade & Enterprise has released research with insights from 14,000 shoppers of Food & Beverage products across six key markets.
NZTE partnered with global research and insights company Kantar to identify key purchase drivers, supported by insights into behavioural and emotive needs of the primary household shoppers in; Australia, China, Singapore, Japan, United States of America and the United Kingdom.
NZTE’s Sector Lead F&B, Craig Armstrong, said that based on research and ongoing work NZTE had seen COVID-19 increase the complexity of shopper behaviour. “To that end, we undertook the research to validate this and because of the importance now - more than ever - to understand the end consumer for New Zealand products.
With Kantar, NZTE conducted an online survey with household shoppers in January/February 2021 to examine what’s driving purchases within eight different F&B categories and 29 sub-categories, including meat, fruit and vegetables, dairy, seafood, alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic beverages, sweet snacks and vitamins, minerals and supplements/Mānuka honey.
“The insights showed that what we were seeing was right and that consumers have adopted a much more complex value set than originally anticipated.
“We learned that eight attributes drive consumer purchases which we have labeled as: tasty, affordable, trusted brand, safe product, healthy, fresh, ethical and on-trend.
“Those may sound obvious, but we must understand our consumers rather than base what we do off assumptions. Plus, there is a huge amount of depth and data behind these insights.”
Armstrong said the research found five key paths that companies could take to capture a premium, we have called these pathways: ethical, on-trend, health, safe product and trusted brand. However, these vary depending on the market and category, so the way businesses construct and communicate their offer needs to be tailored.
“For example, China is influenced by health and safety; Japan by health, taste and freshness; Singapore contains a broader spread of drivers; while Western markets are more driven by affordability, taste and trusted brand. However, affordability and taste do not pull in a premium whereas there is real potential for ethical and on-trend purchases to do so, particularly in the US.”
Armstrong said the research should help exporters with everything from marketing to product, packaging and channel development. It is freely available to all businesses through NZTE’s digital platform myNZTE.
NZTE’s work to support F&B exporters (which includes the global brand campaign Made with Care) to adapt to the evolving international environment and market demands, and to grasp the opportunities presented in premium markets supports the Government’s Fit for a Better World Industry Transformation Plan.