Research by Ingham’s reveals mid-week dinners as the universal challenge facing Australians, with most people experiencing 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.
Ingham’s commissioned Bread and Butter Research to undertake five in-depth two-hour focus groups with Sydney shoppers across a mix of age groups to discuss how they plan and prepare meals.
Weekday dinners emerged as the number one challenge facing all participants. The research revealed:
- Most households have six-11 mid-week dinner go-to’s. Most people stick to a limited repertoire of meals (six-11) that they can do with their eyes shut and know everyone will eat.
- Chicken and mince top midweek staples. Chicken and mince topped the list of dominant proteins mid-week, 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 mid-week menus and would like to try something different, but lack the motivation or brain power when grocery shopping to plan.
- Fear of failure biggest deterrent to serving new mid-week meals. The risk of trying something new and failing was voiced as the biggest deterrent to serving new mid-week meals by all participants.
- Mid-week dinner is eating to live, rather than living to eat. When it comes to mid-week 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.
Ingham Chief Marketing Officer Seb Brandt says, “This 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.”