NPD Group: Going out gets tough for restaurant consumers

One of the single biggest changes in the past five years to the way consumers in the United States eat is an increase in meals from home, seemingly at the expense of restaurant usage, according to The NPD Group. The market research firm found in its 29th annual “Eating Patterns in America Report” that Americans purchased an average of 191 meals per person for the 12 months ended in August 2014, the slowest pace of eating out since 1993. U.S. consumers’ rate of restaurant usage had grown steadily “for over a generation,” NPD Group found, but it fell sharply during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 and has yet to recover to pre-recession levels. Americans now get eight out of 10 meals from home, NPD Group reported, but that does not necessarily mean they are cooking more meals at home; they often are making use of more prepared foods. “We are eating more meals in our homes but not cooking more dishes,” Harry Balzer, vice president of The NPD Group and author of the report, said in a statement. “You can see how Americans are making their lives easier, despite the economic limits, by looking at the foods and beverages that have become a part of more American diets. The real ‘Foods of the Decade’ are not hummus, quinoa, nor kale and not even Sriracha. The real foods and beverages of the decade are those that have increased the most in the American diet.” Leading that growth in prevalence are yogurt and bottled water, which during the 12-month period ended February 2014 showed increases of 12.5 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively, in the number of American consumers to have had the items once, compared with the 12-month period ended February 2004. Pizza grew in popularity as well, with 9.6 percent more American consumers having recently eaten it in the period ended February 2014 than they had in the period ended February 2004. The next largest growth rates measured by NPD during the 10-year period belonged to, in order, poultry sandwiches, Mexican food, fresh fruit, snack bars, frozen sandwiches, chips and pancakes. Balzer noted that these foods’ strongest appeal to consumers is the ease with which they can be eaten. “What’s the real preparation to consume these 10 items? A spoon for the yogurt and maybe a fork and knife for the pancakes?” he said. “We are still leaving the cooking to others. With restaurant visits down, the manufacturers of our foods are filling more of that need.” But many restaurant brands are not giving up on traffic from customers who are more content to stay at home to eat. Toppers Pizza*, for instance, knowing that it competes with simply prepared frozen pizzas from the grocery store, redoubles its menu innovation efforts to come up with toppings and flavors that customers can’t easily executive themselves or find in the freezer aisle. “At Toppers, we recognize the fact that more and more people are looking for a great meal that they can enjoy with friends and family inside their own home but don’t want to settle for a boring pizza experience,” said Scott Iversen, Toppers’ vice president of marketing. “So we’ve created a vibrant menu with tons of options that don’t require our customers to put on pants to enjoy. To top it off, we load up our delivery drivers with plates, utensils, napkins and a variety of seasonings to make the meal complete.” Toppers’ signature items include “house pizzas” like the Loaded Tot-zza, topped with bacon and tater tots, or the El Cubano, which features pulled pork and diced dill pickles, as well as unique flavor combinations such as Chocolate Baconstix.