Eating & Drinking Occasions Landscape: Meal vs. Snack Occasions
Meal and snack occasions are evenly split today, each accounting for more than 180 billion annual occasions. And while the line between these two occasion types continues to blur, it’s critical to understand what makes meals and snacks unique.
This set of data-focused dashboards compares details like categories consumed, preparation methods, decision timeframes, top retail channels, top need states, demographic differences and more so you can optimize your product, marketing and innovation efforts.
Published August 2024 | Report length: 13 pages | U.S. market coverage
- Report (PowerPoint and PDF)
- Hartman’s Compass Eating & Drinking Occasions Database is a comprehensive database on American eating patterns, grounded in a complete enumeration of past-24-hour eating occasions
- Fielded as 3 annual waves (April-May 2023; July-August 2023; September-October 2023) among U.S. adults aged 18-74, nationally representative sample (balanced by age, gender, region, education, income, number of children and race/ethnicity)
- Methodology
- Interpreting the dashboards
- Meal vs. Snack occasions dashboards
- Key details
- Food and beverage
- Sourcing and decision
- Need states
- Demographics
- Key takeaways
- Meal vs. Snack occasions
- A brief overview of the “who,” “what,” “where,” “when” and “why” of meal and snack occasions
- Detailed dashboards comparing key factors of meal and snack occasions:
- Categories consumed and preparation methods used
- Trip type, purchasing and decision timeframes, top sources and retail channels
- Top need states, emotional context and occasion characteristics
- Demographic differences
- Key takeaways and thought starters for innovation
