The food study found the average weekly food shop spend was $238 - but the cohort spending more than $300 has increased big time.
The food study found the average weekly food shop spend was $238 - but the cohort spending more than $300 has increased big time.
There’s been a big jump in the number of Kiwi households now spending more than $300 a week on food compared to last year, according to new research.
A survey of households commissioned by agribusiness bank Rabobank and national food rescue organisation KiwiHarvest found 21 per cent of those interviewed now spent more than $300 per week, compared to 15 per cent in a similar survey last year.
The Kantar survey of 1501 New Zealanders in July and August found householders were now spending an average of $238 a week on food, up 9 per cent on a year ago.
The survey also found the number of vegans had fallen and fewer Kiwis were planning to reduce meat consumption.
Rabobank head of sustainable business development Blake Holgate said the 9 per cent lift in the average weekly spend was unsurprising, as recent Statistics NZ data found food prices were by 8 per cent in the year to September.
The survey found fewer householders spending $200 or less a week on food, down to 53 per cent from 59 per cent last year. It also discovered use of food delivery services like HelloFresh and Uber Eats had plateaued after several years of strong growth.
Rabobank head of sustainable business development, Blake Holgate.
Despite rising food prices, the survey found Kiwis’ grocery shopping behaviours were largely in line with a year ago.
That was even though more households were opting for cheaper, imperfect fruit and vegetables in a bid to keep the food bill down.
Most households - 72 per cent - still did a main grocery shop and then top- up shopping as necessary, with a further 19 per cent of those surveyed saying they had no need to top up their main food shop.
The remaining 10 per cent said they only grocery shopped when they needed goods.
Holgate said while the percentage of vegetarians was unchanged at 9 per cent, those identifying as vegan had dropped to 3 per cent from 5 per cent.
Those planning to cut their meat consumption also declined.
“Across recent surveys, we’ve seen around 30 per cent of respondents saying they are planning to reduce meat consumption, citing a range of reasons for doing so, including perceived health benefits, the cost of buying meat and the desire to reduce the impact on the environment,” Holgate said.
“Only 25 per cent of New Zealanders are now saying they are planning to reduce meat consumption, while at the other end of the meat-eating spectrum, 9 per cent of Kiwis now say they plan to eat more meat - up from 7 per cent previously.”
Food service app usage appeared to have stabilised.
“We first started asking about food app usage in 2019 and across recent surveys there has been a clear trend towards increased app usage,” Holgate said.
“In particular, HelloFresh has recorded exceptionally strong growth since its entrance to the New Zealand market in 2018. In our 2019 survey only 6 per cent of Kiwis said they’d used the service in the last 12 months, but by 2022 this had climbed to one-third of New Zealanders.
“However, our 2023 survey found usage of the major food service apps has plateaued with usage stable across the three largest providers.”
The survey found 32 per cent of respondents said they’d used Hello Fresh across the last 12 months (from 33 per cent previously), while usage of Uber Eats was at 30 per cent (31 per cent) and My Food Bag usage at 18 per cent (20 per cent).
Among the emerging food service apps, Holgate said usage was also relatively unchanged.
“We did see more people saying they’d used Delivereasy and Food Ninja over the last year, but usage of Menulog, Woop and Food Panda was either stable or marginally lower across the same time period.”
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.
