Hearty breakfasts are back
The traditional breakfast meal of eggs and bacon or sausage is coming back into fashion, according to NPDFoodworld’s "Breakfast in America" Report. When Americans eat breakfast at home, the consumption of these foods, popular in the 1950s, is at a 10-year high.
The annual number of eatings per capita of all types of egg/omelette dishes at breakfast is at 33 in 2002 as compared to 31 in 1993 and a low of 27 in 1998. Scrambled eggs, in particular, at 15 eatings per year are also at their highest point since 1993.
When it comes to sausage, Americans ate them an average of 10 times per year at breakfast in 2002, the most since 1993 when they were eaten an average of nine times. The low point for sausage consumption was also in 1998 when annual eatings per capita were at seven. Eatings of bacon have been on the increase since 1998 when it was at a low of 12. In 2002, bacon was eaten an average of 13 times. All data is for years ending in February.
Americans also skipped breakfast more than at any time since 1998. Fifty breakfast meals were skipped, on average, in 2002 nearing the high of 51 reached in 1998. Young adults in the 18-34 year range are least likely to find time for breakfast, skipping almost one out of every four - twice the national average.
Over three-quarters of all breakfasts are still eaten at home (77 percent compared to 49 percent of lunches and 75 percent of dinners), but the in-home breakfast has been steadily losing share, not only to skipping but also to other eating venues and brown-bag breakfasts. NPD shows that restaurant breakfasts are at their highest share since 1993, accounting for eight percent of total breakfast meals in 2002 versus six percent 10 years ago. Although holding a small share of the meal occasion, brownbag breakfasts also reached a 10-year peak this year - 2 percent versus 1 percent in 1993.
"Increased time pressures have been threatening the breakfast meal for a while," says Amie Schwartz, vice president, NPD’s National Eating Trends. "It’s matter of having something satisfying where and when you have time to eat it.
Over the years, restaurants have been doing a good job of making breakfasts portable and tasty. At the same time, the influx of portable, packaged breakfast options is filling a gap, although our need for speed in the morning is growing faster than these products are being created."
NPDFoodworld’s National Eating Trends service maintains a diary panel of 2,000 households. For a two-week period, each household completes a daily diary for all household members. Respondents are demographically and geographically matched to Census Bureau statistics.
Are Americans working less?
Each year, The Harris Poll asks people how much time they spend working, including at school and keeping house, how much time they have for leisure and what their favorite pastimes are. In most years, the numbers do not change very much. This year’s survey, however, shows a sharp drop in the average number of hours spent working (including housekeeping, studying and commuting). Interestingly, this is the only time since Harris Interactive first asked this question almost 30 years ago that the number of working hours has dropped significantly.
From 1973 to 1980, the number of hours spent working, as broadly defined, rose from 41 to 47 percent. It then rose slowly to 51 hours in 1994, dropped back to 50 in 1998 and had remained unchanged through 2001. This year the median number of hours worked has fallen sharply to 47. “This surely reflects the weakening of the economy and the end of a boom years of the 1990s which saw a record number of hours worked,” says Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll, Harris Interactive.
While the number of hours spent working has dropped, there has been no change in people’s estimates of how many leisure hours they have available for relaxation, watching television, taking part in sports or hobbies, and so on. The median estimate of 20 hours this year is the same as it has been 3every year since 1999. Indeed, it has not been higher than 20 or lower than 19 since 1989.
Reading, watching TV, spending time with the family, fishing and gardening are America’s most popular pastimes. When this nationwide cross section of American adults was asked to name their two or three favorite leisure time activities, the largest number mentioned reading (26 percent) and watching television (15 percent). These two activities have topped the list every year Harris has asked this question, although the numbers have fluctuated a bit. Indeed, it is striking that those who say that watching television is one of their favorite activities has fallen from 23 percent in 2000 to 20 percent last year and is now down sharply to 15 percent.
Most of the other numbers in reply to this question have not changed greatly. However, the rank order has charged a little, with team sports moving up on the list (from 5 percent to 7 percent) while swimming (from 8 percent to 5 percent), computer activities (7 percent to 4 percent) and walking (from 6 percent to 4 percent) have all slipped a little.
Europeans drink Americans under the table
Research from Chicago research firm Mintel on alcoholic drinking trends across the U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Germany and Italy finds 62 percent of Americans drinking alcoholic beverages either in-home or elsewhere. Substantially higher is drinking in the U.K. (nearly 90 percent), closely followed by France, with 88 percent of the French consuming alcohol. Meanwhile, just over three quarters of the Spanish enjoy a tipple. With health awareness high in Germany, in part also as a result of the ongoing financial crises in the health insurance system, and discussions over a ban on alcohol advertising, all alcoholic drinks in Germany are under something of a cloud. Over a third of Germans claim to be teetotalers.
In terms of drinking and age, it would seem that the British and French share the same drinking trends. Once the French and British get a taste for alcohol, they never seem to want to give it up. In contrast, American, Spanish and German interest in alcohol dwindles at retirement age. Some 78 percent of U.K. consumers under age 20 drink alcohol; consumption peaks at 93 percent among the 45-54-year-old age group and from there the decline is moderate, with 85 percent of those age 65 and over enjoying a drink. A similar scenario exists in France, where 89 percent of those age 65 and over remain drinkers. American interest in drinking peaks in the 25-44 age group at 71 percent and then falls to below 50 percent for those Americans 65 or older. In Spain, alcohol consumption peaks among those age 25-44 and declines to under 60 percent of those age 65 and over, while in Germany usage declines to just 55 percent of this older age range. "It is interesting to note that drinking at a young age is highest in the U.K. where giving children alcohol is frowned upon. In Italy, where alcohol is part of everyday life, the presence of children in the household does not affect beer-drinking or alcohol consumption in general. Children are used to seeing their parents drink and are themselves given small amounts to taste as they get older. Around 70 percent of Italians under 20 years old drink alcohol, compared to some 78 percent of Britain’s youth," says Anne Bourgeois, European consumer goods consultant.
Over 64 percent of the British are wine drinkers. This is virtually equal to France, where 65 percent enjoy a glass of wine. Just under half of Americans are wine consumers. Of the 89 percent of British adults who drink alcohol, wine is drunk by 73 percent of them. In terms of the amount of wine drunk per drinker, the British are still the lightest users, with French wine drinkers consuming the greatest number of glasses. Nevertheless, the French are drinking less wine than ever and their drinking habits have changed. From a rate of 120 liters per adult per annum in the 1960s, consumption slid to an estimated 55 liters in 2001. Changing eating habits and lifestyles have led the French to broaden the range of beverages they drink. "This shift in consumption trends and lifestyles in France is reflected in the growth of the soft drinks and bottled water markets. Expenditure in these markets has developed more swiftly than for wine," says Bourgeois.
With the exception of the U.S. and their love of dark spirits (at just about half of respondents), the British show the greatest tendency towards drinking any spirit. The proportion of adults drinking white spirits in the U.K. (43 percent) is higher than France (22 percent) and Spain (15 percent) combined and one-quarter of Americans. The Spanish (15 percent) and Germans (13 percent) are the least likely to favor this drink option (the figure for France does not include the popular anise aperitif which is drunk by some 38 percent of French). Across Western Europe, the French are the most likely to opt for dark spirits, in particular whiskey (37 percent), this is followed by the British at 33 percent. Looking at white spirits, the proportion of U.K. adults drinking these in the U.K. (42.4 percent) is higher than the U.S. (25 percent), France (21.9 percent), Spain (14.9 percent) and Germany (13.3 percent).
International study finds wide differences in online usage by businesses
Nearly nine out of 10 companies in the U.S. (93 percent) and the U.K. (86 percent) are now using the Internet for activities such as CRM, marketing, order fulfillment, and sales, according to research by Taylor Nelson Sofres Information Technology, Horsham, Pa. In contrast, 60 percent of organizations in Japan and fewer than four out of 10 (36 percent) organizations in France are using the Intemet as a marketing channel or customer service mechanism.
Similar results are found for Internet usage across key internal business functions such as employee schedule management, knowledge management, supply chain management and training, with companies in Denmark, France, Japan and Singapore reporting fewer internal uses of Intemet applications than their U.K. and U.S. counterparts.
Overall, U.S. and U.K. companies claim to use an average of five different Internet applications out of the 10 for which they were surveyed - CRM, e-mail, employee schedule management, knowledge management, marketing, order fulfillment, selling, supply chain management, training and wireless access to the Intemet. In comparison, the average is between two and three different applications in the other countries surveyed.
These findings suggest that the U.S. and U.K. have developed a more comprehensive use of the Intemet for a wider range of applications by investing more heavily in e-solutions in recent years. In contrast, companies in countries like Japan and France have typically focused on more traditional methods of marketing and selling products and have been slower to adopt wider Internet applications beyond e-mail.
While companies within the U.S. and U.K. markets are likely to have invested more in e-solutions in recent years than their Japanese and French counterparts, the research indicates that around two thirds of companies in both the U.S. (63 percent) and U.K. (66 percent) intended to decrease their Internet-related expenditure over the next year. In contrast, similar proportions in France (56 percent) and Japan (61 percent) expected to increase Internet-related expenditure over the same period of time. This could be explained by the fact that markets such as the U.S. and U.K. have already made significant levels of investment in e-solutions and are now starting to realize the benefits of this investment, which is not the case in other markets.
"Our findings show that some markets have clearly been much faster than others in realizing the potential of the Internet for business applications other than e-mail," says Chandra S. Chaterji, senior vice president, Taylor Nelson Sofres Information Technology. "In many ways this is a reflection of the cultural differences towards doing business in different countries. In Japan, and to some extent in France too, face-to-face contact continues to be extremely important and the more impersonal approach of an online transaction may still not be considered a satisfactory way of conducting business."
This study was undertaken using online interviews conducted with 555 IT decision makers in six countries (Denmark, France, Japan, Singapore, U.K. and U.S.).
Europe - oases of affluence and pockets of poverty
A survey by Germany-based research firm GfK-Regionalforschung (regional research) found that Switzerland is an oasis of affluence: seven out of eight of the richest European regions are in the Swiss Confederation. Geneva leads the way with disposable income per capita of around EUR 36,000 per year. The inhabitants of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, have to live far more modestly, the countries with the least disposable income being Albania (EUR 563), the Ukraine (EUR 379) and Moldavia (EUR 223).
In a country-by-country comparison of income in euro, the Swiss edged ahead in 2001 with an average of EUR 25,603 per inhabitant, while the Luxembourgers had just under EUR 25,000 per capita and the Norwegians approximately EUR 19,000. The Swiss have their strong currency to thank for this result. At No. 6 in the ranking is the U.K. which, with EUR 16,451, has overtaken Germany for the first time in a long while (Germany: EUR 16,171 per capita). This development is also attributable to the strong pound compared with the euro during the survey period. As in previous years, it is noticeable that while the list of affluent countries is headed exclusively by EU states and countries in Central and Northern Europe, the last 20 places are occupied by countries in Southern and especially Eastern Europe.
However, there are also significant differences between these countries. With income per capita of EUR 6,436, Slovenia has slid below Portugal, the poorest EU country with an average annual income of EUR 7,466 per capita. In Moldavia, Europe’s poorest region, people have an average of EUR 223 at their disposal, less than 1 percent of the purchasing power of their Swiss counterparts. In order to take account of the price discrepancies in individual countries, these should be compared on the basis of purchasing power parities. Since the price level is considerably higher in affluent countries than in countries with lower purchasing power, Luxembourg is actually ahead of Switzerland. Luxembourgers have a 53 percent higher purchasing power than the Germans, while the Swiss are only 28 percent above the German level. Moldavia also comes off worst in a country comparison of parity, but the gap between this country and the affluent countries is not as wide as that of the comparison of disposable income. The purchasing power of people from Moldavia currently amounts to approximately 5 percent of the purchasing power of people from Luxembourg.
The purchasing power of inhabitants in individual regions within the European countries was measured using the purchasing power index and taking the German average of 100 points as a basis. In Western Europe, Geneva leads the way with a purchasing power index of 180.4, while Paris follows with 159 points. The Hochtaunus district north of Frankfurt is ranked seventh with 139.8 points, closely followed by Bologna, Italy with an index of 138.5. In a separate comparison of the 300 areas in Eastern Europe, four regions in Western Slovenia come out on top with an index of between 69.9 and 76.4. With 67.9 points, Prague is in fifth place. Compared with the areas of affluence in Western Europe, the richest regions in Eastern Europe still have considerable ground to make up, as they only have around half of the purchasing power of areas in Western Europe. There is substantial regional variation within the 38 European countries. A survey of the purchasing power in the 103 Italian provinces confirmed a marked North-South discrepancy. Whereas some of the regions in Northern Italy are among the wealthiest areas in Europe, the purchasing power south of Rome in what is known as the Mezzogiorno drops significantly. The purchasing power in the Northern provinces of Milan, Parma, Modena and Bologna is around 30 percent above the average for Italy as a whole, while in some of the Southern regions it is 40 percent below the Italian average.
The findings are taken from the "GfK Eastern Europe Basic Market Data 2001" survey and the "Europe Basic Market Data 2001" survey of 1,500 regions in 38 European countries.