United States Consumption & Import Pattern in Confectionery Industry

Introduction:

The United States ranked as the World’s largest importer in the year of 2017, as per the data released by the World Trade Organization. It is said to have spent $2,409 billion on imports in the year 2017 alone. That accounts for up to 13.4% of the global total. Surprisingly, the amount still surmounted to $860 billion higher than the exports. 

Imports of confectionery and Bakery Products in the United States dipped from being $923.64 Million in December to $907.56 Million in January and saw an all-time high of $928.61 Million in the month of October 2016, which shows great progress from its lowest values in the May of 1989 at $75.77 Million. 

Coming to United States goods and services trade with India, came to an estimated $126.2 billion in 2017. Exports came up to $49.4 billion while the Imports totalled $76.7 billion making the trade deficit with India $27.3 billion in the FY2017. Despite being the 11th largest supplier of goods imports in 2017, most of these imports were either precious metals and stones at $10 billion, namely diamonds or pharmaceuticals at $6.1 billion, or minerals fuels at $2.7 billion or machinery at $2.5 billion, or miscellaneous textile articles at $2.5 billion. 

Canada on the other hand is a large exporter of bakery items to the United States. Most imported items include biscuits, dough mixes, bread, waffles, cookies, pastries, gingerbread, cakes, desserts, cereals, pies, puddings, etc. This kind of high influx led to a growth of 7.6% increase in the market for bakery products in the U.S. between 2005 and 2010. 

Baking Industry:

The baking industry has picked up on the fact that the general population is becoming highly health-conscious. Hence, the marketing strategy of many new successful bakery products comes with the tag of being healthy. Many companies are now making products with lower quantities of high-fructose corn syrup and sodium and a higher quantity of fibre. They are also opting for whole wheat bread over the high glycemic content of white bread. As a matter of fact, in 2010, whole wheat bread beat its competitor, the white bread in sales. 

Savoury biscuit volume is expected to see demand as opposed to the fate of the sweet biscuits. This can be owed to the fact that people are more aware now of the dangerous effects of high consumption of sweets than they were earlier. Therefore, the volume sales of savoury biscuits are predicted to grow in the coming years. 

Consumption as per demographics:

As per the NDP Group’s National Eating Trends database (2011), bakery product consumption had fallen by 9% in the preceding 10 years. Overall, bakery products have consumed an average of 230 times a year or 9 times in 2 weeks which means that bread is a favourite among the American population. 

Looking at the consumption of bread over a ten-year period, the years being 2000 and 2010 specifically, the percentage in consumption has fallen from 36.1% in 2000 to 33.8% in 2010. The consumption rate of cakes, bagels, buns and rolls, and pies had fallen in this time period, but there’s been a rise in the consumption of biscuits, cookies, cornbread, muffins, doughnuts and toaster pastries. 

Among the core market for consumption are: 

• Low-income singles
• Older homemakers
• Single and Married active seniors
• Households without children 
• Unemployed and part-time employees or retired 
• People with high school or lower education
• Black and Hispanic groups 
• Residents of the East South-Central states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. 

Markets that are still underdeveloped are: 

• Dual-income couples without children 
• Working households and single-parent households
• Younger homemakers that are under 34 years of age
• Households where the homemakers work full time
• Households where the homemakers work full-time
• Households where the homemaker has some college education 
• Asian or other non-black/Hispanic ethnic groups 
• Residents of the Mountain and Pacific States

Pattern of consumption

When consuming snacks or bakery products, we all have preferences, a certain way of consuming or we prefer to have it at a particular time or accompanied by other accompaniments. A pattern of consumption is observed among the American population to record in the following manner: 

79.4% of the time, bakery products are consumed during a meal; and are preferred to be consumed as a snack only a meagre 20.6% of the time. If you were wondering at what time they were most preferred to be consumed; it was mostly during the mornings (46.9%), followed by evenings (34.3%). And comparatively very rarely in the afternoons (18.2%). Biscuits were consumed 51% of the time during the mornings. Cookies are mostly considered a snacking item; are not consumed with meals and are preferred to be consumed during the evenings. 

About Author:

The author of the content is Ms Praveena Reddy, working as Digital Marketing Executive at FieldEngineer, a Global On-demand Freelance Marketplace very much successful in implementing the organic strategies of Digital Marketing which is evident from the organic results achieved to date and continuing. Proficient in Content Marketing as an author playing a vital role in the content for various fields, products & services etc.