Across the adult population there has been an increase in the proportion who are cooking the majority of their meals from scratch as almost 3 in 10 (29%) of those who are cooking from scratch.
The adults who claim this said that they increased their frequency of doing so year-on-year, this has increased by 2% from 2016 levels (27%). However, there are some 7% of adults who claim they are cooking less this way than a year ago, up from 2% previously.
This is one of the findings in Empathy Research's most recent research on behalf of Retail Intelligence, conducted amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults aged 18+, which sought to understand the cooking behaviour of adults living in Ireland and what has led to changes in our cooking behaviour.
Just over 6 in 10 (62%) of those who have increased their frequency of cooking from scratch claim they have done so as they are “trying to eat healthier”. Further to this, almost half (47%) claim they are cooking more from scratch because they want to be more aware of “what is in the food they are eating”, with a similar proportion (43%) increasing their incidence of cooking from scratch because they believe “processed food is not good for you”. Over a third (35%) claim that they are cooking more from scratch because it is actually “cheaper than buying pre-prepared food”.
Key drivers for reducing the amount of scratch cooking taking place over the past year is that some consumers “have less time to prepare food than they previously had” (56%), with almost 4 in 10 (37%) claiming to be “tired of cooking and looking to make things easier for themselves”.
For further insights into how adults are approaching cooking, including key motivations for other cooking behaviours and what customers want from retailers to aid their efforts in the kitchen, please contact Robbie Clarke at Empathy Research.
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