Picture this: you’re unpacking from your weekly grocery shop, making sure you didn’t miss anything — especially for your dinner party on Friday. While only 4% of all eating occasions are decided a week or more in advance, you delight in planning. As you’re organizing produce, the front door flings open. Your sister has arrived for her week-long visit, and she heads straight for the fridge. “I ate lunch an hour ago, but I’m still starving,” she says as she grabs a slice of leftover pizza without a second thought.
Sound familiar? Spontaneous occasions like this account for 53% of all adult eating and drinking occasions. Spontaneous occasions are more likely than planned occasions to be motivated by sheer hunger and to prioritize easy consumption: 75% of spontaneous occasions that aren’t sourced from a restaurant are either ready-to-eat or require light preparation, so it’s no wonder that unplanned occasions are also more likely to take place during snack times.
Now, let’s turn back to that upcoming dinner party. Planned occasions tend to be higher stakes than spontaneous occasions, focused on enjoying delicious food while connecting with others over a meal. They are more likely than spontaneous occasions to involve a range of important needs, like simple, real ingredients, better flavor, convenience and positive nutrition.
Eating & Drinking Occasions Landscape: Spontaneous vs. Planned Occasions distills nearly 15,000 U.S. adult eating and drinking occasions into 6 data-focused dashboards that help foodservice providers, CPG manufacturers and retailers optimize product and marketing efforts to better meet consumer needs across these two occasion types.
The report distills nearly 15,000 U.S. adult eating and drinking occasions from our proprietary Compass Eating & Drinking Occasions Database into 6 data-focused dashboards. You’ll glean critical details on these two occasion types, including:
- Food and beverage categories consumed and degrees of preparation
- Trip type, sources, retail channels, purchasing and decision timeframes
- Top need states
- Emotional contexts and occasion characteristics
- Key differences across demographics
Bundle and save on occasion insights
Contact us to learn how you can save when purchasing three or more Occasions Landscape reports! Topics include alone vs. social occasions, at-home vs. away-from-home occasions, meal vs. snack occasions and restaurant-sourced vs. non-restaurant-sourced occasions.
For even deeper insights, Eating & Drinking Occasions Landscape 2023: Settling Into a New Era offers a complete analysis of U.S. adult eating and drinking behaviors and how those behaviors have changed over the last five years.
Source: Eating & Drinking Occasions Spontaneous vs. Planned Occasions, Hartman Group