As per a study conducted, far fewer Americans on average cook daily and love to do so than in the [past. Earlier, the majority would cook their own food either because they loved to do so or because they had no alternative. Now due to cheaper dining out facilities and lifestyle changes, there is a huge drop. Another reason for such decline is the plethora of TV shows about cooking and fine dining which tend to bring in an inferiority complex among the majority of people as they will never be able to measure up. The twenty-five market leaders in the food and beverage segment have lost a staggering US$ 18 billion since 2009 in terms of market share. Just as happened to sewing a century back, cooking could soon be relegated to a niche hobby alone. Thus, major changes need to be wrought out by the food companies. One such strategy will be to position oneself to the higher segment as done by Spam owned by Hormel and fortified further through acquisitions such as Wholly Guacamole, Muscle Milk, Applegate Farms and Skippy Peanut Butter. Even Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell and Starbucks have seen breakfast now for seven percent of total revenues. Some categories thus need to be phased out. A business innovation developed by the Washington State University is called MATS or microwave-assisted-thermal-sterilization which has intrigued Amazon. This ensures food quality remains top notch while preservation lasts longer so could have implications in fighting global hunger as well.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-grocery-industry-confronts-a-new-problem-only-10-of-americans-love-cooking?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Uploaded Date:-06 October 2017