It’s fair to assume that consumer snacking habits are likely to differ from country to country, particularly across different regions and cultures.
A clear example is the consumption of potato crisps / potato chips which can be seen in the bar chart below. 86% of consumers throughout the USA and France consume potato crisps / potato chips closely followed by 84% of GB consumers. On the other end of the scale is the Chinese market with only 28% consumption.
Potato Crisps/Potato Chips*
Consumption per Country
86%
86%
84%
72%
51%
43%
28%
USA
France
Source: Global TGI 2012
GB
Egypt
Brazil
South
Africa
China
Base: Total population
But do Chinese consumers simply snack less? Data from China’s TGI (CNRS) show that Chinese consumers are snacking on other goods rather than crisps such as biscuits (66%), candy (64%) and chocolate (44%) in the last year.
As the best known potato crisps and potato chip brands are Western-owned such
Kettle, Pringles and Lay’s and Walkers, this may explain their lack of popularity in China and their huge appeal to Western markets.
Attitudes towards diet and health can also vary between different markets with the chart below offering a direct comparison between consumer attitudes in America and China.
Only 25% of American consumers agree that it is worth paying more for organic foods, whereas 60% of consumers in China agree with this statement. A further difference can be highlighted as 46% of Chinese consumers agree that they ‘always think of the calories in what I eat’ compared with a much lower level of agreement throughout the
USA of 27%.
Any Agree with the following statements:
China
USA
60%
25%
China
USA
46%
27%
China
39%
USA
39%
Source: Global TGI 2012
'Its worth paying more for organic food'
'I always think of the calories in what I eat'
'I consider my diet to be very