Following the news that food inflation is at its highest since the 1970s;

Hannah Cleland, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on how this will impact consumer spending:

“Higher food prices combined with the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic will inevitably shift consumer spending priorities away from non-essential/luxury items like visits to hospitality venues, bars and restaurants and towards making savings on the household budget with more discount grocery shopping.

Restaurants could be affected by this as more people may opt to stay at home and cook rather than going out for a meal. There are a growing number of people cooking from scratch at home with a recent GlobalData survey confirming that *91% of respondents globally said that they had either started to, continue to, or are doing this more frequently, which suggests that this trend is here to stay.

“Although many people are on tightened budgets, there are opportunities for restaurants and foodservice outlets to capitalize on their access to higher quality or specialist products compared to those available to consumers in supermarkets and discounters.

“An effective service that has already gained traction during the pandemic is meal kits and the same GlobalData survey found that *53% of global respondents have started to, continue to, or are using meal kits more frequently. Meal kits provide a way for food outlets to continue engaging with consumers who can’t afford to eat out and cuts the overhead costs for businesses running a bricks-and-mortar venue.”

* GlobalData’s Q3 2021 consumer survey