Working Brits' lunch habits: Streetbees
Working Brits' lunch habits
 
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: Kantar
Reasons for consumption of carried out lunches  
     
  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
Total consumer spend on lunch time occassions   
       
  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.