Insight
Why oh why don’t people eat more veg?
Almost everyone knows they should eat at least five-a-day. In fact, most people have every intention of doing so, but, life gets in the way. For Veg Power to succeed we need to understand the reasons people don’t achieve those goals so we can help them build the bridge across that gap.
For the last six years we have conducted the annual Veg Power survey of 3,000 parents and their child of primary school age which we complement with additional qualitative and quantitative research and the support of many amazing academics, commercial market researchers and subject matter leaders who so generously give us their time. Here are our published reports…
Interesting snippets
LATEST
Market Insight #6: August 2024
Primary school meals: Who decides?
Food eaten during the school day makes up nearly a fifth of primary age children’s diets in the UK. This presents a huge opportunity for schools and school caterers to support the improvements to children’s diets that are drastically needed, ensuring they have the nutrition to grow healthily and the energy to learn and thrive throughout the school day.
Several studies have highlighted the superior nutritional quality of school meals compared to packed lunches. This underscores the importance of promoting school meal uptake as a strategy for instilling healthy dietary habits from an early age and tackling childhood obesity. Yet, a puzzling trend persists: even when cost is taken out of the equation many families choose not to claim these meals, opting instead for less healthy alternatives. This report delves into the heart of this issue examining the human factors behind these decisions. Who in the family decides whether a child eats a school meal or a packed lunch? What drives their choice? And most importantly, how can those in the school food system address these barriers to increase uptake?
Previous reports
Market Insight # 5: July 2023
The Importance of role modelling
With the situation worsening, this felt like the
right time to examine how the cost-of-living
crisis is affecting the nation’s relationship with
veg. Our national survey of 3,000 parents and
their primary school-aged children reveals some
important insights.
This report also takes a close look at a tricky subject – how much do parents influence their children’s diet? How important is parenting style and being a good role model?
Market Insight # 4: January 2023
Festive Fare
The UK has enjoyed decades of low inflation. That all changed with the end of the pandemic and the start of the war in Ukraine.
The cost of everyday staples and budget lines have been hit disproportionately hard, ratcheting up the pressure on lower income households. Three out of ten people are having a hard time paying for daily essentials.
With access to retail sales data from IRI Worldwide and a commissioned You Gov survey we ask: What impact did the cost of living crisis that have on veg?
Market Insight # 3: September 2022
Family Evening Meals
The pandemic saw a marked increase in vegetable retail sales as people ate more at home, and many strived to be healthier. The question we asked in the last report was how we could maintain the good as the world returned to normal after the pandemic.
That didn’t happen. Russia invaded the Ukraine, triggering inflation and a cost of living crisis. How would impact veg consumption?
This report also focuses on family mealtimes. When families cook at home and eat together, they generally eat healthier food with more vegetables. We need to encourage it, and to support parents to succeed at
serving better food, to do that we need to understand what’s really going on at family mealtimes.
Market Insight # 2: February 2022
Healthfulness
Our second Market Insight Report considers whether promoting good health is an effective message to increase vegetable consumption. The pandemic has certainly put health at the forefront of people’s concerns, whilst at the same time, recent figures show childhood obesity levels to have risen sharply over the pandemic to the highest levels in 10 years.
This report presents our first attempt to segment vegetable consumers into a small number of groups with clearly understood consumption patterns, attitudes, and motivations.
Market Insight # 1: July 2021
Opportunity Knocks
Our approach to this report was to delve deeply into what really happened in and to the veg sector during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What did the retail sales data tell us? With excellent access to retail sales data from IRI Worldwide, Nectar and Kantar we had the hard numbers to measure the impact of the pandemic.
Based on these findings we predicted what we believe would happen next and how the sector could adapt to capitalise on this.
Special Report: July 2021
Seasonal Vegetables
How aware are UK consumers about vegetable seasonality? And how much does it influence their
purchasing? We wanted to find out, so we commissioned YouGov to survey 2,000 people and Pearl Metrics to analyse the IRI retail sales data.
We asked a full range of ages and demographics but were particularly keen to understand the 18–34 year
olds, as they are more likely to be starting families and so influencing the next and current generation of kids.
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