‘Shoppers struggling to balance budget with health and sustainability’

Shoppers are struggling to buy prioritise healthy and sustainable with inflationary pressures and value for money, shows recent data from NielsenIQ.

About 57 percent of UK consumers believe that companies should be taxed heavily if they are producing or promoting unhealthy choices, as 60 percent of UK households also say it is important to buy sustainably produced grocery products to help save the environment.

NielsenIQ reveals that 54 percent of UK consumers pay attention to labelling/food nutritional values when grocery shopping, with sugar (45 percent), fat (41 percent) and salt (31 percent) content having the biggest impact on purchase decisions.

However, the data also shows that shoppers in the UK face a challenge of doing good for their personal health and planet while managing the rise in food and living expenses as a result of the current inflation in the country.

The three most important concerns about grocery products for UK shoppers are reducing food waste (45 percent), buying local/British (36 percent) and minimal/no packaging (26 percent). However, although consumers expressed a will to switch to sustainable product packaging, shopping behaviour did not always reflect this willingness.

“With 49% of households focussing on value for money when buying new food and drink products, UK shoppers find themselves in a bit of a fix as they struggle to balance tight budgets with their health and sustainability values,” said Katrina Bishop, UK Thought Leadership Activation Manager at NielsenIQ.

“We may see a slight shift in priorities from shoppers as they seek to find alternative ways to balance this, for example, cutting back on grocery spending and on meat may result in cooking with fresh vegetables rather than seeking out meat alternatives.”