European Mealtimes under Investigation

Meal times across Europe are becoming more fragmented, with many people dropping their main meals in favour of snacking at work or eating out in restaurants. This is according to analysis in Datamonitor's new report, 'Changing Mealtimes'.

This latest snapshot of modern eating habits shows that there is a major shift in people's attitudes towards meals. We are increasingly treating meals as flexible 'time-spends' with the result that we enjoy a portfolio of occasion-types. This shift is being driven largely by increasingly hectic pace of life, placing as it does a premium on convenience and time-efficiency. Eating on -the-move, so-called desk-dining, informal café lunches and restaurant dining are all indicative of this.

Datamonitor's new research also details how most people skip breakfast of all possible meals. At present, breakfast accounts for the lowest share of food and drink spend in any country - only 5.5 percent of all consumers in Europe sat down for breakfast in 2001. Lunch is the meal that most Europeans eat, yet only 47 percent of us consider this as our main meal (compared with 49 percent believing that dinner is the main meal).

At the same time, Datamonitor predicts that, over the next five years, meals as such will increasingly give way to snacks. The report predicts that, on average, each European will eat 11 fewer meals a year by 2006. However, they might well snack 19 more times a year on average as a reaction.

The report concludes that European retailers will need to target the workplace as a key dining location. At present, 46 percent of us indicate that we eat breakfast in the office on a regular basis. Marketers will need to be aware of consumers' greater willingness to shift their main meal to other times of the day whilst retailers will do well to adapt their offerings to provide more hot food at lunchtime.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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