Mom the Decider… or Do Kids Really Rule in the Supermarket?

Each year Moms have a hand in spending nearly $200 billion on food purchased for use at home, so it’s not surprising that marketers and grocers have long targeted Moms and their families as a consumer group that is critical to their bottom line.  One traditional marketing strategy has been to appeal to kids directly on Saturday morning TV commercials with the hope that kids’ will unleash their vaunted “pester power” to influence what their Moms buy in the grocery store.

What goes on with Moms and their families in grocery stores, though, can be a lot more complicated.  For example, proprietary survey data cited in Packaged Facts Moms as Food Shoppers: Grocery Store and Supercenter Patterns and Trends show that a majority (56%) of Moms were alone and blissfully free from the demands of their kids as they made their way up and down the aisles of the grocery store on their most recent grocery shopping trip.

Still, Moms are not always in charge in the supermarket.  While 52% of Moms characterize themselves as the sole decision-maker about food purchases, a substantial segment of Moms share decisions in the grocery store with either a spouse or partner (22%) or with their children (10%).  As children grow up, changing family dynamics make a real difference in what goes on with Moms in grocery stores.

·         Moms and Dads are most likely to share in food-buying decisions when they have a child under the age of two, but the involvement of spouses or partners declines rapidly as kids get older.

·         As spouses recede from buying decisions in the grocery store, children step in.  Moms with children in the height of their tween years (10 to 11-years old) are most likely to report that food purchase decisions are made jointly with their children.

·         When their children enter their teens, Moms regain authority in the aisles of grocery stores, likely because teens have little interest in tagging along with Mom when she goes food shopping. 

Another noteworthy shift in buying patterns in the grocery store as kids get older has to do with Moms’ interest in organic food.  Around two in five (39%) Moms with kids under the age of two use organic foods.  However, when children start to walk and talk, their Moms’ focus on organic foods goes downhill.  The percent of Moms using organic foods declines to 33% among those with three- to five-year-olds, 29% of those with six- to 11-year-olds and 25% of those with 12- to 17-year-olds.

For information on Moms as Food Shoppers: Grocery Store and Supercenter Patterns and Trends, please visit: http://www.packagedfacts.com/Moms-Food-Shoppers-7239546/