According to a study, food shoppers will stop buying a product when its original price has risen by an average of 40%.
The study surveyed over 1,000 UK and US consumers, asking them a series of questions “designed to reveal just how price-sensitive they really are.”
Findings from the survey include:
- 94% of participants said they had noticed their food shopping bills going up in the previous three months
- 79% stated they believed supply chain problems such as driver shortages were to blame for rising food costs.
Respondents were also asked to select the point at which they would stop buying a selection of food products due to price rises. Overall, the results indicated that shoppers were more immune to price increases for low-cost staple goods.
The category in which consumers were least price sensitive was milk (dairy), which could increase in price by an average of 65% before respondents would stop buying it, followed by bread (62%) and fresh vegetables (60%).
The survey, conducted by Ingredient Communications and SurveyGoo, also found that consumers are happy to shop around in order to offset the impact of upward price pressures. Nearly half of respondents (48%) said they had switched to a cheaper brand in the previous three months as a result of price rises, while 26% said they had changed to a retailer’s own-label version of the same product.
