Key Findings

Packaged food growth can be explained by a simple bucket of drivers

Using Euromonitor International’s Industry Forecasting Models, future consumer demand patterns in packaged food can be broken down into a few key areas, with population, income, prices and “soft” drivers being the most important. How confidently these can be predicted in advance varies.

Declining numbers of children and rising numbers of older adults define the impact of population

Population is the most stable of the drivers of packaged food growth, contributing roughly 0.5% to total industry expansion every year globally, though the relative impact by market is very different. Rising life spans and declining fertility rates mean that, as the population increases, its composition shifts, and with it, food consumption patterns.

Income growth benefits volumes up to a point, then the benefits move to value

At lower levels of income, increasing per capita GDP is associated with higher volume consumption of packaged food. As incomes rise, the effect of GDP becomes more value-based, affecting brand choices, eating outside the home and the desire for premium attributes more than it affects volume.

The future of premiumisation has been made more complex by rising prices

Premiumisation is a goal for many segments of the packaged food industry, and much potential still remains, but it is becoming harder to achieve as rising prices make consumers less inclined to spend additional money on top of the price increases that they are already being asked to absorb.

“Soft” drivers add an element of unpredictability to the long-term forecasts of food categories

Much of food growth depends on the least predictable factors, like legislative action, marketing investment and wellness trends. A mix of looking at long-term trends and historical experience has to be used to provide a hint of what these factors will end up looking like.