How to Leverage Findings From SFA's State of the Specialty Food Industry Report
The Specialty Food Association recently released its State of the Specialty Food Industry report 2024-25 Edition, which offers insight into the fastest-growing specialty food categories and forecasts trends across key segments.
During an SFA webinar titled “The Future of Specialty Food: Insights from the NEW State of the Industry Report 2024-25” David Lockwood, the report's author, and Nona Lim, SFA Board Chair and founder of Nona Lim Foods, will discuss how specialty food industry stakeholders can leverage this invaluable data to drive informed business strategies to stay ahead in the fast-paced specialty food world.
This free webinar takes place today, July 18 at 1 p.m. EDT. Register now.
If you’re interested in browsing The State of the Specialty Food Industry and 10-Year Category Tracking and Forecasts, 2024-2025 Edition, you can download it here. For the first time, the resource is free for SFA members, who must be logged into their member account to access.
Specialty Food News spoke with Lockwood and Lim about the findings of the report.
What was the most surprising insight from the report?
Lockwood: We determine the most important growth drivers by looking at the largest of our 63 categories and the fastest-growing categories. This year, they are snacking, indulgence, and cooking at home. All three are long-term trends, but I was surprised that cooking at home was as dominant as it is this year. It had a strong 2022 and an even stronger 2023, despite the fact that foodservice also had a very strong year.
We have never seen such strong growth in cooking at home and foodservice in the same year. Cooking at home is being driven by two trends: a large consumer segment is cooking more at home to save money to combat inflation (even though the inflation didn't come from food in 2023), and another large group is cooking more at home thanks to the many specialty food brands and products that make it easier to create elevated or restaurant-quality meals at home. This can be seen in condiments becoming one of the 10 largest categories for the first time, as well as cooking sauces and oils, seasoning, baking mixes, butter, and beans, grains & rice.
Do you have any advice for emerging specialty food makers who are looking to leverage the data?
Lim: As a maker, I find reading the Executive Summary helpful in providing an overview of the trends in the industry. I then like to dive into my specific product categories to learn more details and understand as much nuance as possible. The charts can be really helpful too in sales presentations to retailers to showcase what’s going on in my product category and to help with the sales process. I also use some of the data as input into my overall innovation process and thinking.
How do you feel the specialty food landscape is changing?
Lockwood: One way is that makers responded to the pandemic years by increasing the amount of innovation. It is difficult to quantify, but examples include the past 2.5 years of increased cooking at home for elevated meals and the rise of fermented foods approaching mainstream status.
Are there any topics or areas you are most excited to discuss during the webinar?
Lockwood: Everything. This webinar is a "best of" compilation so I can't reduce it further!
Lim: I'm looking forward to the questions that our members might have!