Research by Ingham’s has revealed midweek dinners as a universal challenge facing Australian consumers. Ingham’s commissioned Bread and Butter Research to undertake five in-depth two-hour focus groups with Sydney shoppers to discuss how they plan and prepare meals.
The research revealed that most experienced a constant tension between easy and faster and a desire for more variety, while being faced with limited evening capacity, fear of failure, limited repertoire, and lack of motivation when grocery shopping.
Weekday dinners emerged as the number one challenge facing all participants.
Most households reported having 6-11 midweek dinner go-to’s, sticking to a limited repertoire of easy meals that the whole household will eat.
Chicken and mince topped the list of dominant proteins midweek, both voiced as being affordable, versatile, quick to cook, relatively healthy and everyone likes them.
Boredom prevails, but motivation for new is not always present when shopping.
Most participants said they felt bored with their midweek menus and would like to try something different, but lack the motivation or brain power when grocery shopping to plan.
Fear of failure was identified as the biggest deterrent to serving new midweek meals.
The risk of trying something new and failing was voiced as the biggest deterrent to serving new midweek meals by all participants.
When it comes to midweek dinners, the attitude among Aussies is focused on completing the task in the fastest and easiest way possible and moving on, rather than enjoying cooking and eating the meal. Midweek dinner is eating to live, rather than living to eat.
Ingham’s Seb Brandt, chief marketing officer said the research was undertaken to better understand the mindset of Australians when approaching meal planning and preparation.
“Weekday dinner planning emerged as the number one universal problem facing all of us - every day we must think about what's for dinner, and to work it out involves a complex series of questions: Who likes what? What ingredients do I have? Do I need to defrost or pick up anything? Who is home when? How much time will I have when I get home? Can I have leftovers for lunches the next day?”
“At Ingham’s we are focussed on producing fresh and frozen poultry that satisfies the needs and tastes of Australians, and this research will help inform our future activities,” said Brandt.
