Light Survey | What type of eater are you?

At the grocery store, are you the type to scrutinize the list of ingredients of each product that enters your basket? To wander aimlessly between the rows? Is food a source of pleasure for you? A task that comes up too often in a day? According to a new survey, Quebec consumers are divided into eight distinct profiles when it comes to eating. And the results are… astonishing. Overview.

In Quebec, a quarter of the population says they experience no pleasure from food. Surprising? This is what a new survey conducted by the Léger firm with just over 2,000 participants reveals.

The results were published in the latest issue of Brotha guide intended for the food industry produced by Ilot, specialized in strategy and brand management in the food sector.

“We not only wanted to look at the purchasing behavior of Quebec consumers, but also their relationship with food,” explains Guillaume Mathieu, co-founder and partner of Ilot.

And the results are astonishing to say the least. In fact, 25% of respondents responded that food gave them no pleasure. The study, which divides the population into four main eating profiles, calls them “practical-practical”.

For the “practical” people, eating is a task to be accomplished three times a day. Their relationship with food is almost exclusively utilitarian – they leave little room for culinary discoveries and ready-to-eat meals are part of their routine. They are also the ones who spend the least on average at the grocery store per week, at $148.

This is the profile that surprised Guillaume Mathieu the most.

“We have so many cooking shows, cookbooks. And we know it, Montreal is a city of restaurants. It gives the impression that Quebecers are food lovers, but ultimately, for one in four people, the dimension of pleasure is absent from the relationship with food,” he emphasizes in an interview.

Conversely, “enthusiasts” represent only 17% of the population. As the name suggests, they like to discover new recipes and look for quality and freshness of products. They are good consumers of wines and cocktails, and are also more inclined to frequent public markets and delicatessens than other profiles.

The “organized” and the “spontaneous” each represent nearly 30% of the population. In the first group, 82% consider their food-related decisions to be completely planned. They carefully scan the nutritional facts tables and look for the good deal. They are the ones who go out to restaurants the least often.

As for the second group, 70% go to the grocery store several times a week. The “spontaneous” make their purchases according to their desire of the moment and regularly visit restaurants. Unlike others, they care less about product quality and are little influenced by promotions and discounts.

Diversified profiles

The four main profiles are themselves divided into four sub-profiles, namely practical “disinterested or functional”, organized “frugal or conscientious”, spontaneous “without fuss or curious” and passionate “sensible or explorer”.

“The eight profiles that we find are particularly well defined. They are very different. It is not true that there is a Quebec eater or a type of Quebec eater,” argues Sébastien Poitras, vice-president, public affairs and communications, at Léger.

This is the first time that Ilot has done such a survey. “Our objective is to follow these trends year after year, to possibly refine the data. The notion of pleasure linked to food, for example, is something that we will want to explore,” concludes Guillaume Mathieu.

Trends

Broth presents the trends to follow in 2024 in the agri-food industry. Here are three.

Long live the little pleasures!

At the grocery store and in restaurants, the rise in food prices has left its mark. Result: discount brands like Walmart and Maxi are gaining popularity, and loyalty programs are popular. Paradoxically, food is often the “last little pleasure we have left,” argues Guillaume Mathieu. The industry has every interest in offering products that promote indulgence on a low budget: exotic flavors, limited or seasonal editions, ready-to-eat, etc.

AI in your fridge

Artificial intelligence has been used “in processing chains and factories for years,” notes Guillaume Mathieu. Now it is in the hands of consumers! Quebec applications Chef Touski or to MyRicardo+ use it to design a menu based on the foods in their fridge. In the not-so-distant future, we could imagine technology allowing you to compose the week’s menu based on promotions or using cameras integrated into your fridge.

Air-based proteins

In Singapore, a restaurant has developed a menu entirely cooked with the synthetic protein Soléin, obtained from the fermentation of hydrogen in large vats. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture has authorized the marketing of laboratory-designed chicken meat. Synthetic thigh highs will not land on our shelves in 2024, “but it is a shorter rather than a long time horizon before that happens, with all the ethical issues that we can imagine,” concludes Guillaume Mathieu.