The food and baking industry has endured many trials during the ongoing pandemic and many of us are now trying to learn, overcome and take advantage of the consequences. The trendteam on Bakels Sweden have looked at the trends we have seen and want to share the insights we have made. This report is based on the end consumer’s requirements and needs, which ultimately affects our customers worldwide. We are going to develop and improve our offer to benefit our customers with the insights from on this report. Our primary task is to ensure that our customers can achieve success by meeting the markets needs and requirements.
Our success is when you succeed.
These market trends and consumer insights contained in this report have all been brought together from various undisclosed third party sources. Of course, Bakels Sweden AB leave it to the user to interpret and utilise this information accordingly.
It has been all about hygiene during this ongoing pandemic. And there will continue to be a major focus on hygiene even when a vaccine has arrived. For the food industry, food safety has always been a top priority, but quite an obvious and a unspoken subject from the end consumer’s point of view. The consumer will now begin to question more and want to make sure that what they choose to eat has had to undergo a very rigorous hygienic manufacturing chain. The food industry will be pushed to find more hygienic solutions with as little human contact as possible. There will be more automation and robotisation. Striving for contact-free solutions from being as simple as opening doors to high-tech manufacturing methods. We have seen a lot of single packaged consumer goods during the pandemic and that way of selling products is here to stay. We will also see a lot of innovative and hygienic packaging solutions in the food processing industry.
The consumer will be even more interested in Clean Label and eating vegan or plant based goods. To eat as clean as possible is to experience a fresh and hygienic lifestyle choice. If a manufacturer of food can pair hygien together with sustainability, a match in heaven is made.
In times of chaos the one thing you aim for is to take control. Covid-19 with lockdowns all over the world and the global financial insecurity has indeed made us feel unstable. It is human instinct to want to regain control, so we start to take control wherever we can. Planning our personal finances, our food purchasing and our meals is one thing we can control. So that’s what we are going to do. With a time of economic uncertainty comes a price sensitive consumer looking for deals and value. The question the end consumer will ask themselves is ”What’s in it for me?”. Security and comfort is to strive for and the goal is to look after oneself and ones family first and foremost.
Frozen food consumption was increasing even before the pandemic but surely had a real boom during the worlds many lock-downs when everyone wanted to fill their freezers. It is predicted that frozen food will keep on increasing and particularly solutions with a luxury and an artisan feeling is interesting for the consumer. We also see a huge bake-at-home-trend up and rising and frozen food is a bridge to do-it-yourself. We are spending less time in stores whilst also stocking up on food, therefore baked goods with a longer shelf life and improved quality is of great value for the consumer.
Bakeries and restaurants has been forced to push themselves to find solutions to maintain sales and costumers despite the pandemic and all the obstacles it has created. We have been seeing a number of creative solutions where the click and collect method brings great success. More and more consumers are discovering the convenience of ordering online and pick up their meals at a pre-destined time and location. This way of purchasing food and baked goods is really here to stay.
The consumers want to shop on their terms and therefore restaurants and cafes must adapt to meet their requirements in the absolute best way. For example we are going to see pick up pop-ups along the roads and many more creative delivery solutions. Usability and flexibility are important keywords. We will also see automation and robotification within this trend. Minimum human-hand-contact is the goal. Dark/ghost kitchens are shared spaces where multiple restaurants can prepare meals for delivery only. As more restaurants turn to delivery to survive the restriction of eat-in dining, therefore there is an expectation that the number of both dark kitchens and dark kitchen providers to boom.
Health is predicted to become a megatrend in the suites of this pandemic. People around the world have now understood the risks of obesity, high blood pressure and poor health in not just covid-19 but in any diseases. These insights will lead the consumer to look for healthy alternatives for their treats. Sugar-free and fat-free are of course interesting, but what is predicted to carry this trend is food and baked goods that contain ingredients that are perceived to boost the immune system. The consumers wants to eat what is good for the physical health of the body but also to promote their mental health. Vitamins, minerals, pre, post and postbiotics are interesting. Fibres are also on the radar and all the health benefits that comes with that.
Although food and pastries according to this trend should bring healthy effects, the enjoyment of what one eats is still the main thing. It has to look and taste good whilst also doing good. Vegan and plant based is the obvious choice within the healthy eating path and has already taken the food industry by storm. We will see even more vegan and plant based alternatives on the market ahead. For the consumer, it is primarily not about switching to being 100% vegan, but to replace certain meals with other alternatives.
Because of the ongoing pandemic, we have been working from home more than ever before, and discovered that it actually works really well. This way of working is definitely here to stay even post Covid-19. More time at home means more time to do things at home that favours and gives comfort to yourself and your family. During the crisis, habits have changed. More people are cooking meals from scratch and are baking like never before. We are learning new skills from social media where tutorials from famous chefs and bakers (that also had to find new creative ways to work) has flowed. It is predicted that bake-at-home kits will be of interest to the consumer who wants to continue baking even after the pandemic.
While exploring our new cooking- and baking skills in our spare time, we are also looking for quick and easy ways to eat during working hours. The freezer becomes our best friend and bake off or thaw solutions will solve our life puzzle during the day. The pandemic makes us search for comfort in pleasing pastries and good food but we also want to take turns eating healthy. People’s awareness for the need of nourishing and healthy indulgence has increased. Therefore we will see a lot of snacks, and especially snacks with different types of healthy functions. When staying at home, our local bakery and restaurant will benefit. We want to take care of our neighbourhood and also share it online.
This trend is in fact a sub-trend to several of the other trends in this report. But big enough to still have a slide of its own. Single packaged snacks feel hygienic, it goes along with the healthy trend and working from home also means a lot of snacking. We will snack like never before in the near future and the idea of ‘what to snack on’ has changed. Just as we strive to plan our personal finances, our purchases and what to eat in the days, we will also be planning our snacking between meals. Snacking truly will become a part of our lifestyle.
The healthy trend is really strong in this segment and the consumer is interested in having multifunctional snacks. A snack should for example satisfy the nutritional needs as well as boost the immune system with vitamins or help digestion because of probiotics. However the largest group of snacks are those that give true indulgence to the consumer. There are certain values that a good snack must contain to get over well with the consumer. It must be easy to eat on the go, be reasonably priced and have a good taste. There are other principles that gives the snack value. For example if it is natural and organic, comes in a packaging that is suistainable and goes in line with my personal style and image.
