The Power of Snacking
The Next Decade of Women's Changing Nutrition
Over the past few years IFTF’s Global Food Outlook program research has focused on food choices and how the values people hold, the contexts that surround them, and people’s behaviors themselves, will change in the coming decade.
We have been asking questions such as, how will we decide what’s for dinner, and how will our values shape our everyday decisions? Where will we getfresh food? And of course, how will people navigate the deluge of information generated by both scientific discovery and technical advances in traceability?
Most recently we have been researching a more specific subset of these questions, with a focus on snacking among American women. What will they eat that is not part of a traditional meal, and more importantly, why?
Today the report of these findings, The Power of Snacking, has been made available to the public by our research sponsor Luna Bar. Luna Bar also released the following news release on the research that provides context for their particular interest and stake in the future of food and snacking.
What drew IFTF to this project was the unique focus on how American women navigate an inevitably changing, and unquestionably challenging, future landscape of food, through actions in their everyday lives.
From the report’s introduction:
With a new decade upon us, a number of influential trends are changing the way women view food, and specifically snacking. Understanding these changes will help women prepare for the emerging trends shaping their future health and well-being over the next ten years. This 10-year forecast study not only examines health, nutrition and food trends, it also delves into the social, technological, generational and gender role conventions that are shaping the way women learn about, prepare and consume snack foods. The report covers a wide range of topics including why women look for snacking choices that reflect their lifestyle patterns—which, for most women, does not include daily cooking and dinner with a family; to how women interested in obtaining nutrients from more whole foods are rethinking snacking choices; to the growing number of women focused on bringing the pleasure of eating back into their occasional indulgent snacking choices. It forecasts that, over the next decade, we’ll see a changing landscape that enables women to build their own ecosystem of trusted resources, co-create and choose healthy snacks for themselves and their families, and above all, focus on the pleasure of eating.
For more information on IFTF’s future of food research, please contact research authors, Rachel Maguire and Miriam Lueck Avery.
To learn about supporting our ongoing research in food futures and becoming a member of the Global Food Outlook Program, please contact Dawn Alva.
Publication Date
2011