NPD: Consumers Seek Out Restaurants with Healthful Options
NPD: Consumers Seek Out Restaurants with Healthful Options
By FERN GLAZER
Nation's Restaurant News
August 11, 2008
As restaurateurs expand the number of better-for-you menu options available to patrons,
they also need to do a better job marketing those efforts to the growing ranks of
health-conscious consumers, according to new data from The NPD Group.
In a recent survey the Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm found that
consumers are dieting less, eating more better-for-you products at home and increasingly
seeking out restaurants that offer such options.
“It’s about marketing, it’s not about product movement,”
said Harry Balzer, vice president of NPD. “Operators should be flexible, they
should be looking for opportunities to provide products that are better-for-you
with added benefits that they can add and be prepared to remove them from the menu.”
Consumers’ perceptions of health have changed through the decades. Today,
many consumers think being healthful means including better-for-you foods in their
diets, versus being on diets or eliminating from diets harmful substances or ingredients,
such as cholesterol or sodium, NPD found.
According to NPD, the number of products Americans consume per day with a label
indicating a perceived health benefit, such as organic, light or whole grain, has
increased every year for the last four years. In the year ended in February 2008,
the average American ate at least two and a half better-for-you products per day,
up from just over one and three-quarters in 2004. In addition, in 2007, just 22
percent of American adults said they were on a diet, the lowest number since NPD
began tracking such information several years ago.
Consumers are not only eating better-for-you-products at home, they increasingly
are looking for them at restaurants, NPD found. Last year, nearly 3 percent of all
visits to a restaurant were motivated by the desire for something healthful or light
to eat.
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