More than half of Australian consumers expect food prices to get worse in the future, according to new research from Ipsos.
In its Food – What the Future report released on Tuesday, Ipsos reported that 59 per cent of Australians are particularly pessimistic about prices, outpacing the average across the 29 countries surveyed of 48 per cent.
“It is not overly surprising that Australians are somewhat pessimistic about the cost of food in the future as this fits with what we see in the Ipsos Issues Monitor, where ‘cost of living’ has been the number one concern for Australians since June 2017,” David Elliott, director of the Ipsos Social Research Institute, said.
“Likely fuelling concerns about future food pricing are constant community, political and media discussion over energy prices, recent petrol price hikes, and concerns about the impact of global warming, all of which can impact the cost of food,” he said.
Food quality, home cooking on the rise
Food quality predictions and access to healthy food were more positive with 27 per cent of Australians believing the quality of the food they eat will get better, compared to 18 per cent who said it will get worse, and 28 per cent believing their access to healthy food will get better, compared to 17 per cent who said it will get worse.
In meal preparation, 31 per cent of Australians said they will make meals at home more frequently in the future, with 64 per cent saying it will be ‘about the same’.
In line with this prediction, Ipsos found 26 per cent of Australians are predicting a decrease in having meals delivered to their homes, with 53 per cent saying ‘about the same’.
Across the globe, on average 31 per cent predict a decrease and 45 per cent said ‘about the same’ for future delivery of meals to their home.
Local provenance important to most Australians
Just over half (53 per cent) of Australians predict that the frequency of having groceries delivered to their home will remain ‘about the same’ while 24 per cent expect it to be less frequently.
Australians were among the lowest in terms of claims to eat only organic food at only 19 per cent, while globally an average of 29 per cent of people claim to do so. Australia ranks pretty close to the global average in terms of choosing plant-based substitutes for meat, with 39 per cent claiming to do so versus 41% globally.
The report also showed that the majority of Aussies (60 per cent) prefer to eat local food even if it means they have fewer options to choose from.
The Ipsos survey of 29 countries was conducted online among adults aged under 65 in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the US.
