26 Jul 2019
Taste is and always will be the number one criterion for many consumers when buying bread, patisserie and chocolate. Already in 2015, consumers in Canada said taste was the most important factor for all three categories. Today, consumers confirm the continued importance of taste in a global consumer research program named Taste Tomorrow.
What is most important when buying bread, patisserie or chocolate?
Consumers had the option to choose between a variety of answers. In 2015, consumers said taste was the most important factor for bread, patisserie and chocolate. Today, taste has gained importance especially for patisserie and chocolate. However, freshness gained importance for bread-buying Canadians. This means you cannot compromise on taste; it’s crucial in the decision-making process when buying these products.
In the 2015 Taste Tomorrow survey, we saw that consumers liked to innovate, but not too much. It was crucial to stay close to the classics and what they were already familiar with. This explained the success of hybrids like the cronut - an innovation that stayed close to the well-known croissant and donut.
This attitude has since evolved for Canadian consumers. Given that we live in a multicultural and globally connected society, discovering that 55% of Canadian respondents enjoy trying exotic, international flavours was not unexpected. Intriguingly, though, nearly four-fifths are still big on “traditional” tastes. It’s an exciting, “anything goes” time to be in the baking and chocolate industry!
When it comes to taste, there’s another important shift compared to previous Taste Tomorrow surveys. For Canadian consumers today, taste is more than just flavour—texture is now a key component too. One out of two Canadian consumers pays as much attention to special, delicious, appealing texture as to flavour. It enhances the eating experience, because different textures are visually interesting as well. The latter is clearly influenced by digitalization where consumes are looking for Instagrammable products that they can share in their social media. Because while taste is extremely important for the majority, consumers want to be wowed by all their senses.
Key takeaways from the ‘taste’ trend:
To summarize this first trend we’d like to share these key takeaways with you:
- Never sacrifice on taste, as it is the number one buying criteria for consumers.
- For bread, freshness is as important as taste for Canadian consumers
- They like traditional as well as unusual/exotic tastes
- Texture and the visual aspect have become additional key components of taste experience
About Taste Tomorrow, it’s a consumer survey dedicated to bakery, patisserie and chocolate. It’s conducted by Puratos every three years in 40 countries to gather data from over 17,000 consumers, including 400 Canadian consumers. The results? Fresh insights on health, taste, convenience, experience, digital trends and more, to stimulate innovation in the bakery, patisserie and chocolate sectors. The study was first conducted in 2011 and now, eight years later, the results of this third edition reveal nine key worldwide trends, with ‘taste’ being the most important.
More information?
Please contact your Puratos Sales representative if you would like to find out more about the Taste Tomorrow trends in Canada.
This article is written by Liesbet Vandepoel, Marketing Director, Puratos Canada. Liesbet has over 15 years of expertise in marketing in Europe and North America and has developed a true passion for food as well as a thorough understanding of the people who consume it. In the coming months, she will share with you the different trends coming from the Taste Tomorrow study with a specific focus on Canada.
