10/05/05 Watching food trends

Trends are fascinating to watch and critical to track if you make your business marketing to consumers. Our eating habits have changed dramatically in this decade. Bottled water requires an isle in the supermarket instead a shelf and a cup coffee has evolved into identity statement . Our grocery list has evolved as well, no longer simple, it has become a complexity of food selections, in what is being called the "fragmentation of the household diet." A family dinner is now a smorgasbord of different selections based on personal choice. One member might need a diet due to medical symptoms or illnesses, like diabetes, while someone else at the table is eating for preventive health benefits. And more than likely there is the family member who consumes food based on environmental, moral or even social principles. So we can all say "Bye, Bye, entrée", eating individual food preferences at the family table means food will be advertised by communities of orientation. So which one you will join?