In its latest insights into consumer spending habits in food and beverages, professional services company Deloitte highlights how food as medicine continues to resonate with consumers. Its popularity remains even though price rises and shifting spending patterns to stretch budgets are at the forefront of consumers buying habits.

As health and wellness is still an important decision-making factor, new opportunities emerge for fresh food producers and retailers to centre their formulations and product benefits on helping consumers make healthy choices.

Exploring healthy eating habits

“The fresh food perimeter is now the basis of competition in grocery,” says Oliver Vernon-Harcourt, UK retail lead partner, Deloitte. Concern exists about the impact of cheaper and unhealthier food on diets, especially in children, and obesity issues, Vernon-Harcourt says. Maintaining good on-shelf availability will also be under pressure in the UK during the winter as supply chain disruption and the effects of high inflation impact farmers, producers, and processors.

“Using food as medicine is one of the ways consumers can be empowered to take control of their health,” he says. “When not every household has equal access to or can afford to pay higher prices for fresh, healthy foods, it contributes to health inequities and poorer health outcomes.”

Cost versus value

Along with its fresh food survey, Deloitte is conducting an ongoing monthly global state of the consumer research initiative. In the UK, 84% of consumers say they are concerned about rising prices, which is up 12 percentage points over 2021.

Groceries are the food segment wher consumers see prices rising the most. “Price is dominating the conversation around fresh food and how it is leading in the contraction of demand even in the food sector,” says Vernon-Harcourt. “There is a real flight to value here.”

Deloittes findings indicate that consumers are adopting various tactics to deal with food price inflation. Its insights reveal that 38% of shoppers are trading down to store brands and private labels, one in three are shopping multiple stores to cherry-pick their sale items and one in five are changing their primary store to a lower-price outlet.

“Most surprisingly, consumers are very focused on reducing food waste,” says Vernon-Harcourt. The focus today is on lowering costs, with 40% of consumers saying they are trying to eat all their food to save money.

“However, fresh food bought because of its health benefits is somewhat resistant to inflation.”

Deloittes food as medicine insights indicate 84% of consumers consider health and wellness when making fresh food purchases and 61% say they are still willing to pay a premium for fresh food.

Food as medicine leads

“Food as medicine is the biggest health trend we explored,” says Vernon-Harcourt. Around three in four consumers believe in the connection between food and preventative and therapeutic health benefits, Deloitte finds. Many also explicitly seek food as medicine benefits when they make their purchases.

The problem is that consumers are confused about how to use food as medicine, says Vernon-Harcourt. Of those asked, 62% of consumers say there is conflicting information and feel confused about the healthfulness of specific foods. Furthermore, four in 10 say they do not clearly understand which foods can be used as medicine. Over half of consumers say it is vital to receive data about food origins, safety and nutritional properties to confidently use food as medicine, Deloittes research shows.

However, the industry is leaning into food as medicine. The opportunity is ripe to help connect the dots between food and health. Approximately half of consumers trust their grocer to make personalised fresh food recommendations and they are willing to share their health profiles and use an app to receive benefits, Vernon-Harcourt continues.

In the US, for example, Krogers OptUP programme helps guide consumers to healthier choices. “We expect to see closer partnerships between grocers and food producers and health care providers and payers in using fresh food to keep their patients healthy,” says Vernon-Harcourt. Food prescriptions and medically tailored meals to address specific health conditions are examples of food as medicine developments.

Tipping the scales toward cost

Price rise concerns, however, are prevalent. “We do expect this to slow down somewhat as affordability becomes more important to the average consumer,” he notes.

There may be a point wher we see cost concerns potentially deter consumers from focusing on health and wellness-led purchases. However, these points vary for different consumer groups.

Deloitte has seen some consumers deprioritise decision-making factors like locally grown or sustainability due to their price premiums. “At some point, that could hit health and wellness too,” adds Vernon-Harcourt.