Magazine: Consumer values and trends appearing in eating habits

Bacher János
product head | consumer insights
& marketing effectiveness
GfK

There are innumerable innovations launched, but the majority of these aren’t successful, e.g. in the FMCG market more than half of the new innovations fail. There are many reasons for this, for instance consumers like to stick with their good old products and it can also happen that a new product or service doesn’t fit into consumers’ set of values or opposes a value shared by many people.

The GfK Consumer Life survey studies consumer values and the strengths of certain consumption trends in 30 countries. It has identified 57 values that are key in shaping consumer behaviour. Based on these it can be seen that Hungarian consumers are similar to the global average in many respects. At the top of the list we find protecting the family and honesty. One of the characteristic differences is that ‘punishment – punishing those who commit crimes’ has been ranked 11th in Hungary, which position is 36 places higher than the world average.

These values are influenced by the changing environment, and the most important drivers of our increasingly global world, such as demographics, the economic situation, digitalisation and the appearance of new business models. At the same time our vales tone down the strength of these effects. This interaction is what consumer trends develop from. GfK’s survey examines the strength of 12 global trends that affect consumer behaviour the most these days.

One of these is safety – it is interesting that in a global comparison, this is the consumer trend that is the least characteristic of Hungarians. However, the fact that it is almost twice as important at world level also means that it is rather likely that this consumption trend will strengthen in Hungary. What is characteristic of consumers who are more affected by this trend than the average? They pay special attention to buy products that come from the right source, and they only purchase the products of reliable, trustworthy brands. Because of this attitude they are more actively searching for new products and innovations.

What consequences can we draw if we study the trends in the eating habits of Hungarians in the long run? GfK’s Eating Habits study reveals that in the 1990s the typical Hungarian had 3 meals a day, but today the majority has 4 or 5 meals, or even more. It is interesting that we don’t cook more often; on the contrary, cooking frequency is lower than it has been ever before in the last 15 years: the average Hungarian cooks 2.5 times a week. Nearly two thirds of Hungarian adults say that they like to cook, and only 12 percent reckon that they are a complete failure in the kitchen. This year’s edition of the GfK Eating Habits survey also reports in detail on the factors that affect consumers when buying groceries, e.g. health-consciousness, kitchen equipment, etc. The study is published in December.