The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food, 2nd Edition

The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food, 2nd Edition

The future of grocery shopping is increasingly digital. Consumers are looking for convenience in how they get and prepare their foods, and online grocery shopping options facilitate:

• ordering on one’s own time (even outside of store business hours)
• home delivery or appointments for curbside pickup
• access to foods not available locally, including specialty types or foods to suit particular eating habits or allergy limitations
• assistance with meal planning, as platforms suggest combinations and recipes
• assistance with meal preparation, as some formats supply precooked, premeasured, or otherwise semi-prepared meal elements

Online grocery sales nearly tripled in 2020 due to pandemic-fueled changes and expectations for contactless transactions. Sales were also strong in 2021 and 2022 as many consumers continued pandemic-era habits and desired convenient ordering.

While the pandemic is receding as a primary driver of habits (as of 2023) and consumers are resuming pre-pandemic activities, online grocery ordering is sticking around. Remote work, both full- and part-time, will continue for the sizable segment of the population that started or expanded the practice during the pandemic. Consumers who used to make purchases during their daily commutes have established new habits – like online ordering – since leaving the home to shop has become less convenient.

With a focus on “what’s next” and current consumer trends, The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food is packed with insights about consumer trends, behavior, and motivations to help food producers, retailers, packaging companies, employers, and investors gauge consumer perspectives and find areas for growth in a competitive market.

The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food delivers actionable predictions and recommendations designed to guide producers, retailers, and investors in making business decisions by providing data and insights about consumer behavior and what consumers think about shopping for groceries online.

Scope

The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food is the go-to source for a complete understanding of US consumer trends regarding food and beverage e-commerce. This report combines Packaged Facts’ extensive monitoring of the food and beverage market with proprietary surveys, and evaluates current trends and future directions for marketing and retailing, along with consumer patterns during the pandemic and across the broader food and beverage market.

This Packaged Facts report analyzes the dynamics of the current landscape of the online grocery and meal kit market. Consumer demographics, perceptions, motivations, and behavior are examined as pertaining to dietary choices and use of food delivery and pickup services. Attitudes on food, diet, health, and product packaging are studied. Effects of recent historical trends on consumers – including the COVID-19 pandemic and the inflation era – are considered in both a broad sense and in the context of the online grocery market.

This report provides information about online retail sales of food and beverages to consumers in the following product categories:

• Shelf-stable foods and beverages in cans, bottles, or other packaging (including alcoholic beverages)
• Meal kits and prepared meals
• Perishables such as fresh fruits and vegetables
• Dairy and egg products
• Meat, poultry, and seafood
• Bakery items
• Frozen foods

This report includes online sales of such items from:

• Store-based grocers (e.g., Kroger, Safeway, ALDI)
• Mass merchandisers (e.g., Walmart, Target) and warehouse clubs (e.g., Costco, Sam’s Club, BJ’s)
• Online-based grocers (e.g., Amazon, Thrive Market, Hungryroot)
• Brands that sell their own food products via their websites, direct-to-consumer
• Meal kit and prepared meal delivery services (e.g., HelloFresh, Sakara Life, Factor 75)
• Third-party pack-and-deliver companies that use their own workforce to purchase groceries at various stores and deliver them to customers (e.g., Instacart)
• Local co-ops and farmers’ markets that arrange for subscriptions, single orders, and pickup or delivery digitally

Online sales made via website or app – whether delivered to a customer via shipment or local delivery, picked up in-store, or received via curbside pickup – are all included.

Historical numbers for the online grocery market are provided from 2017 through 2022. Market forecasts are provided for 2023-2027 and 2032.

The online grocery market in 2022 is also segmented by fulfillment type (delivery, pickup/curbside, and shipment), retailer category (grocery stores/supermarkets, mass merchandisers/warehouse clubs, online only retailers, third party pack and deliver services, and farmer’s markets/organics/other), and product category (bakery items, beverages, dairy and eggs, fresh produce, meats and seafood, pantry/frozen, and prepared meals and other foods).

Historical numbers for the meal kit delivery services market are presented from 2019 to 2022. Market projections are provided for 2023-2027 and 2032.

The reasons for and implications of shifts in consumer perception and behavior are analyzed in the context of future market opportunities.

Additionally, The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food has dozens of tables showcasing numerical survey data on consumer demographics and psychographics and numerous marketing photographs. This report goes in-depth on COVID-19 trends affecting the food and beverage market.

Report Methodology

The information contained in The Future of Grocery: Online Grocery, Meal Kits, & Direct-to-Consumer Food was developed from primary and secondary research sources. Primary research includes interviews with food and beverage market experts; participation in and attendance at food industry events; and extensive internet canvassing.

Primary research also includes national online consumer polls of U.S. adult consumers (age 18+) conducted on an ongoing basis by Packaged Facts to analyze attitudes of consumers and their relevant food and beverage preferences.

Survey data from MRI-Simmons are used to analyze the demographics and psychographics of consumers.

Supplementing Packaged Facts’ exclusive survey is analysis of the 2022 Food & Health Survey conducted by the International Food Information Council, which analyzes consumer food purchase decisions, diet and lifestyle choices, snacking activity, and perception of health benefits in foods. Show more