Americans feel food inflation has hit 22.8% nearly 10 points higher
Consumers changing shopping behavior
CHICAGO, Oct 3, (AP): Americans believe that food-at-home inflation has hit 22.8%, 9.7 points higher than the 13.1% annual rate reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics according to the latest dunnhumby Consumer Trends Tracker (CTT) released today. The perceived rate of food inflation is 5.1% higher than the dunnhumby Consumer Pulse report from February 2022, just after Ukraine was invaded. The dunnhumby study also found that the impact of food inflation varies widely by geography and demographics. The CTT is part of The dunnhumby Quarterly, a strategic market analysis of key retail themes, with the second edition being focused on inflation.
“Seven months ago we first reported on the mismatch between consumer sentiment and reality regarding food inflation. We now we see it’s at the highest point to date, and we are also seeing that consumers are responding by changing their shopping behavior, and perhaps most troublingly, nearly a third are cutting back or completely eliminating some meals,” said Grant Steadman, President for North America at dunnhumby. “While there are signs in parts of the economy that inflation may be dampening, that has not occurred yet for food. Retailers and manufacturers need to ensure that they are putting their customers first when they are making decisions about how to respond to persistent inflationary cost pressures.”
The Consumer Trends Tracker was first launched in April 2022, and included an online survey of 2,012 consumers, representative of the U.S. grocery shopper nationwide. The most recent wave of the CTT includes an online survey of 2,000 U.S. shoppers that was conducted in July 2022. The study is designed to uncover shopper needs, perceptions and behavior over time, and to complement dunnhumby’s Retailer Preference Index which measures the strength of retailers’ customer value proposition. The dunnhumby Consumer Trends Tracker can be accessed today.
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