Price, taste and innovation: what's in your breadbasket?

The Bread Market

We all have a love for bread (maybe a little too much), and the global trends certainly appear to reflect that as the global bread market was valued at $201 billion USD and is showing no signs of a plateau in the coming years. Diving a little further into that figure and zeroing in on our homeland, Canada’s bread production industry has a collective of $8 billion CAD while showing an annual growth rate of 2.4%. While this is a flourishing market both globally and continently, recent market trends seem to show that consumers are looking for more healthy options as to avoid looking too doughy themselves. This would encourage the production of more nutritious, specialty and artisanal breads.

The Facts

This is all very interesting to us as some of these trends appear to correlate with our survey findings. When asking consumers to select a statement that best describes their bread purchasing habits we found that 95% of people buy bread (I know, shocking right?). But as anticlimactic as this might seem, this is actually very intriguing considering the steady rise of bread (pun intended). When observing the market trends with regard to the price of bread, the prices are now 70.39% higher since 2000 with an average inflation rate of 2.84% per year; meaning that a loaf that would normally cost $5 in 2000 would now cost $8.52 in 2019. But what does this mean for the industry leaders? Well you better make sure that your brand is on the shelf because 66.88% of people said that they would purchase a different brand of bread if the one they normally purchase wasn’t available. Similarly this could mean consumers aren’t entirely loyal to their normal brand of bread and if there is a cheaper option available they could be likely to put that one in their basket instead.

The best invention since sliced bread

Who doesn’t love new innovations? They make our lives easier without even realizing that the normal way of doing things was problematic. When it comes to bread there is nothing more frustrating when you’re making the dream sandwich only to find out that your delicious bread is moldy and you’re forced to throw out the bread. Food waste has become a real issue with reports of 1/3 of food produced goes to waste and equates to $1 trillion wasted globally. Comparably, our survey results indicate that millennial females are most interested in purchasing half loaves of bread. While this innovation isn’t a solution to all food waste, it’s certainly one that is plausible as half loaves have been available in the European market for quite some time. To further this idea, our Ontario demographic stated that 1 in 4 females would be interested in purchasing half loaf bread. This appears to align with market trends as Supermarket News states that while bread remains a staple, people are consuming less of it. Perhaps by then having the option to purchase half loaves of bread could help contribute to the prevention of food waste and align with the trend that bread just isn’t being consumed in the same quantity anymore.

Great taste at the right price

It’s fair to say that every purchase we make we want the most bang for our buck. So why should we have to sacrifice taste for the price of bread or vice versa? That’s something that struck with our respondents. 59% of our users said that their bread purchases are based on the price and taste. This again correlates with the research done by Supermarket News as they found that two-thirds of their respondents stated that price is the most important attribute when purchasing bread while taste placed second with 57% of respondents citing taste as the second most important attribute when purchasing bread. As much as we love the smell, taste, and comfort bread brings to us, it still seems to have a negative image due to its health aspects. With the high levels of carbs, sodium and fat levels “operators have had to scramble to keep up with changing fads like low-calorie, whole grains, artisanal and gluten-free [breads]” says Supermarket News. For industry leaders knowing what consumers want such as well priced, tasty and healthy products, this is the daily bread that keeps the company ahead in the market.

So what?

Based off of our results from respondents, we can see that a large majority of consumers are purchasing bread but there are certain aspects that determine their purchasing habits. Consumers want bread that is well priced, tasty, healthy and quantifiably efficient. Aside from half loaf of bread, our Canadian consumers also reported that they are interested in innovations such as high protein bread and Canadian sourced ingredients. From the quick survey that we had our consumers respond to, it’s evident to note that our findings align with current market trends. That is why we strive and have the passion to work with market leaders to help them understand their consumers purchasing behaviours in order to increase the industry leaders revenue and brand loyalty.

Who Are We?        

If you’re unsure by now, Caddle is a data insights company that has a passion for understanding market trends which can be translated to the market industry leaders for the benefit of understanding the buying behaviours of their consumers. Most recently Caddle conducted a survey with a sample size of 7,507 respondents in which we asked consumers their buying decisions when it came to bread. Given today’s market trends, we found the results to be quite interesting and we hope you do too.

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