Working Brits' lunch habits |
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95% at least occassionally bring their own lunch to work |
42% bring in their own lunch every day of the working week |
36% said price was the most important factor when choosing lunch during the working week |
87% occasionally or regularly bring leftovers from home to work for lunch |
61% said eating leftovers for lunch helps them to cut back on food waste |
Source: Streetbees poll of 619 working consumers, June 2019. Streetbees reveals how people behave by analysing real-life moments with machine learning and natural language processing. Visit Streetbees.com |
Reasons for consumption of carried out lunches | ||
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Servings (m) | Growth y-o-y | |
Enjoy the taste | 2385.8 | -5.3% |
Health benefits | 648.4 | -10.6% |
Quick to prepare | 339.5 | 0.3% |
A treat or reward | 261.0 | 1.9% |
Fancied a change | 198.7 | -6.8% |
All that was available | 95.4 | 25.4% |
Calorie or portion control | 76.2 | 32.4% |
Needs using up | 34.3 | 34.4% |
Source: Kantar, 52 w/e 24 February 2019 |
Taste is, as always, the main factor influencing lunchbox choices. However, this motivated 134 million fewer servings than the year before.
Meanwhile, practicality is becoming an increasingly important factor. Nearly 100 million servings were eaten because the food was ‘all that was available’ – an increase of 19.3 million on the year before.
There were also an extra 8.8 million servings chosen because the food ‘needed using up’.
Other practical reasons include ‘it complements the rest of the meal’, up 5.3% to 527.2 million servings, and ‘quick to prepare’, up by a million servings to total 339.5 million.
In this practicality-driven market, demand for variety at lunchtime is also declining. ‘Fancied a change’ motivated 198.7 million servings this year, down 6.8%.
There are also fewer lunchers choosing their food based on health benefits, with a total of 77.2 million fewer servings eaten for this reason.
Still, health isn’t totally off the radar for Brits. An extra 18.7 million servings were eaten in the name of ‘calorie or portion control’, while an additional 6.8 million were consumed due to ‘having time for a healthier meal’.
Total consumer spend on lunch time occassions | |||
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2016-17 spend (£m) | 2017-18 spend (£m) | 2018-19 spend (£m) | |
In Home Lunch | £14,277.8 | £14,853.4 | £15,107.1 |
Carried Out Lunch | £3,620.0 | £3,845.8 | £3,784.5 |
Source: Kantar, 156 w/e 24 February 2019 |
Brits spent an extra £253.7m on in-home lunches this year, as they chose to prepare and consume their food at home on a more regular basis.
The main driver is declining consumer confidence, says Katie Shade, solutions director at Kantar. “Brits are looking to cut back on the amount they spend, which has led to a higher frequency of the cheapest option at lunch, which is at home.”
No kidding. Lunch out of home costs consumers on average 320.7% more than a lunch at home, and even the carried-out lunch – ie a lunch prepared at home and taken out – is 10.2% more expensive.
By contrast, carried out lunch spend has decreased by £61.3m. That doesn’t necessarily mean Brits are eating carried-out lunches less; they are just spending less when they do. In fact these lunches cost on average 4% less per occasion this year than the year before.
Key to this drop in spend is the rise of leftovers being packed into lunchboxes. “Leftovers cost significantly less per serving than a standard carried-out lunch, which has made them vastly more popular this year,” says Shade.