The July 2022 edition of the Consumer Food Insights (CFI) report from the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability (CFDAS) at Purdue is now out. A key take-away from this month’s findings is consumers’ buying behaviors are beginning to be affected by inflation and worsening economic conditions.
We repeated a question we asked back in February, which asked respondents to pick the top 3 answers that most reflected how they were responding to higher food prices. Back in February, the most common response (selected by 31% of respondents) was “little or no change.” In July, that figure fell nine percentage points to 22%. Now, the most common answer is “sought out more sales and discounts” followed by “switched to generic brands.” Whereas the “switched to generic brands” category was only selected by 13% of respondents back in February, in July it was selected by 22% of respondents.
Despite this finding, we are not yet seeing an uptick in food insecurity rates, and total food spending continues to rise.
This month, we did a deep dive into effects of education on food behaviors and attitudes. We find:
Food insecurity in 2022 is highest among those without any college education.
The most educated consumers report being most satisfied with their diets.
The importance of nutrition increases as consumers complete more years of college.
Gardening, vegetarianism, and recycling are most popular among those with a graduate degree.
Here’s how various food-system related beliefs vary by education.
A lot more is available in the full report.