Roughly two years into the pandemic, shoppers have developed a variety of new product preferences with underlying notions of boosting health and wellness, with 61% of Americans saying physical and mental wellness will become more of a priority over the next 12 months including as they watch the Super Bowl, according to NielsenIQ’s recent 2022 Consumer Outlook report.
Shoppers are proactively managing their health and are starting at the grocery store, adding and deleting ingredients and categories based on personal health needs (i.e., allergies and intolerances) and specialized eating regimens – which have driven 10% dollar growth in “food as medicine” categories since 2019.
The pandemic-related shift towards immunity-boosting food and beverage items fueled double-digit growth for clean-label, sustainable, specialty diet, and plant-based products, and it is expected that these new preferences will unfold across kitchen tables around the country during the most infamous Sunday of the year.
However, Nielsen says, these newly developed behaviors will come secondary to consumers’ desires to indulge with family and friends, especially for those who have not attended a Super Bowl gathering since prior to the pandemic.
Overall, there has been a large, growing consumer interest in healthier (but not necessarily the “healthiest”) options, where they’re searching for nutrition but also indulgence, with 29% of consumers actively seeking “healthier” options when browsing. As consumers’ definitions of health continues to evolve, retailers and manufacturers are tasked to aim higher by providing products that meet the massive shift in health-focused product preferences, in addition to in-depth product attribute data online and on packaging in order heavily reinforce the range of benefits a product provides. Health- and wellness-related consumer need states will continue to drive both consumption and grocery innovation, and corporations must pay attention to growing need states.