Following News Corp’s recent release of their annual Food Corp 2024 Trend Forecast, Mediaweek caught up with to Laura Simpson, digital director at taste, to talk through the highlights in further detail.
On the table for discussion were the success that News Corp has seen with video, how values shaped by the pandemic and the rising costs of living has impacted consumer food behaviours, and what has come of some of Food Corp’s 2023 predictions.
The Golden Age of entertaining
Looking back at last year’s Forecast and how it reflected the 12 months that followed, Simpson described “the Golden Age of entertaining” as the one trend that was “almost more bang-on than we expected.”
See Also: News Corp Australia reveals the food trends to expect in 2023
Like all trends contained in the forecast, this prediction had been created in conjunction with the Growth Intelligence Centre (GIC) at News Corp. Simpson elaborated, “That has played out in almost all aspects of what we were looking into: all aspects of food, and how people are cooking at home.”
According to Simpson, the GIC reported “this massive trend towards people; that they’re not dining out as much due to cost of living pressures. They’re eating at home.
“We overlaid that with all the data points that we’re seeing, and that we have access to a Food Corp, and we can see that there were so many of these ‘entertaining’ searches, ‘entertaining’ queries, ‘entertaining’ trends creeping in.
“That’s come up, and it’s still going.”
Looking to the near future, Simpson added, “We were looking last week at food trends and entertaining.
“Usually, we see that start in about October, but it’s already started, again, for September. So I think that’s a good indication of what kind of Christmas we might have.”
The blended life
Post-COVID, Simpsons says that, “All our work routines have changed.
“Some people are working from home, some people may be living with their parents when they hadn’t previously. There was a COVID baby-boom, so they could be cooking for extra people.
“That actually shifted the cooking patterns that we can see.”
She continued, saying that, “Previously, there were very specific things that we could see – this happens on a Monday, this happens on a Tuesday – but now there’s been a blending across the week.
“For instance, the weekend starts on Thursday, and finishes probably on Monday night, with Saturday as a big, big event-based cooking day, which we hadn’t previously seen before.”
Shifting consumer values and behaviour
For most Australians, the rising cost of living is at the forefront of concern, and as such, a challenging time for many brands to navigate the current market.
Simpson commented, “In our data we can see that there’s a trend towards more kinds of budget ingredients. When we post budget content, it tends to resonate better.”
She suggested that the current environment may actually be an opportunity for brands; “At the beginning of the Trends Forecast we talked about consumers ‘protecting their premiums’, so there’s been this rise of the discerning consumer.
“Obviously people’s belts are tightening, and people are really being cautious about spending, but there are opportunities for them to spend on the things that they really value.
“So it’s a case of brands looking at what the value is in their offering, and how they can be in the consideration set by tapping into what those little personal premiums that people are attaining are.”
Talking further to the values of the present day consumer that are informing their food choices, Simpson observed that long-term health is a big focus. “During COVID, there was a bit of a health reset, where people were thinking, ‘well, I just want to eat to live. I want to eat to have a long, healthy life.’
The ultimate goal for brands in this market is to speak to the growing desire for, in Simpson’s words, “long-term health, convenience, and having those moments that people can seize and really cherish.”
The rise of video
With News Corp Food Network citing 341 million social video views achieved over the last financial year, the importance of video seems imperative.
As Simpson asserts, “About 80% of our recipe content is now underpinned by video. Vertical video is the number one storytelling medium that we’re focused on. Our team on Food (and I know this goes for the whole of News Corp) is completely digital, and largely vertical video focused. So it cannot be understated.”
The rise of video Simpson attributes to COVID, and further, “it also accelerated during the rise of platforms like TikTok, and Meta’s Reels offerings.”
See Also: Meta launches Facebook Reels in Australia
With the video data that they accumulated, Food Corp were able to debut video trends in this year’s Forecast, revealing that 82% of Millennials turn to video when looking for new recipes or tips. Additionally, 74% of consumers have purchased a product after watching Reels.
In light of this, Simpson stated, “If you’re not in video now, you need to be within the next few months, because there’s a lot of catching up to be done.
“That’s where we as Food Corp come in. From an FMCG perspective, we have a lot of expertise in food, as we know, but we’ve also got a lot of expertise in video that we have built up over the past five to seven years.
“We’ve been doing videos for quite a long time, and we’ve got a lot of learnings.
“Not just from a storytelling perspective, but also driving the action after people have watched the videos, so we’re looking at the shopability of video, providing that bottom of funnel solution.”
What’s next?
Looking ahead, Simpson detailed the next evolution for Food Corp; “A lot of people think of us as food, but food is life in a way, so where we’re gonna be focusing on extending our expertise is into kitchen-adjacent categories.”
She concluded, affirming, “During a cost of living crisis, trusted environments like Food Corp are really important for people who maybe don’t have as much money as they had previously, to do research and to leverage the expertise, so that they know when they are making purchasing decisions, they’re going to be making the correct ones.”
See also: Brodee Myers-Cooke: What the 2023 News Corp Food Trends Forecast tells us about the future of food