Understanding Today’s Consumer: Q&A With Mike Kostyo, Menu Matters

The consumer purchasing landscape continues to transform thanks to new technologies and consumers' reliance on social media. During the Summer Fancy Food Show, Menu Matters VP, Mike Kostyo, and President Maeve Webster will discuss the implications of these changes, and how brands can build trust with today’s consumers.

The session, titled “The Retail Revolution: Decoding the New Consumer Path to Purchase,” will take place on the Big Ideas Stage, tomorrow at noon. Through an exploration of generational differences and emerging platforms, the speakers will offer insight into what matters most to consumers when they decide where to spend their food dollars.

“At the Fancy Food Show, we will think through modern issues consumers have as they are making their path to purchase, and how that may affect your brand,” Kostyo said in an interview with SFA News Daily.

Kostyo previewed some of the topics that will be covered during the education session.

Tell us about how the consumer food journey has changed and what it means for retail.

If you think about the traditional consumer path to purchase, every company may have its own, but it usually looks like a two to three-stage cycle:

• Awareness: how does somebody learn about your brand?

• Consideration: consumers are trying to figure out if they should purchase your brand.

• Purchase: when consumers decide that this [product] is something they want in their life.

Some brands also consider later stages like post-purchase or repeat purchasing as a factor, so you can include that.

You can think about that path to purchase and how it has evolved over the years. For example, years ago it was simple. I might hear about a brand on the radio, newspaper, or TV, then I go to the grocery store to purchase it. There weren’t as many options as there are now.

With the amount of information available to us today, that purchase path has gotten a lot messier and it has begun to evolve. One example is in the awareness stage. Algorithms are a big factor on the tech side of the industry. Those algorithms are often a way consumers learn about your brand. Maybe your customers are on TikTok or another social media platform and that algorithm feeds them an advertisement or organically produced content.

The consideration stage is much messier. We do a lot of work around the needs that consumers have that the food industry needs to answer when they’re making those purchasing decisions. A lot of that right now is around trust. A lot of consumers, unfortunately, have lost a lot of trust in the industry. They don’t necessarily think we have their best interests at heart… so building that trust becomes key.

Now more than ever, consumers lean on their friends, family, or colleagues for information when considering making a purchasing decision.

The purchasing stage requires brands to think about the pain points consumers have when making a purchase. A modern pain point may be if a consumer is ordering for delivery, there may be a tech issue, they go through too many screens, or the final checkout price is higher than they originally thought.

Would you say that consumers are more price-conscious now?

If you ask consumers now if they are price-conscious, they will say yes. Certainly, they have been hurt by high prices. On the same token, we did some research earlier this year and found that consumers still want to treat themselves. We are seeing that, in times of economic strife, consumers still look for opportunities for more affordable treats. That’s where the brand can insert itself and showcase through that path to purchase that they are the opportunity.

What big or emerging trends are you seeing on restaurant menus?

We are seeing a lot of floral flavors on menus. So lavender is showing up on several coffee beverages today, both at retail and on the foodservice side. I don’t think there’s a single floral flavor that is not growing on menus currently. They tend to do particularly well with younger consumers and if they have some type of color that is also a feature of that menu item that can be showcased on social media.

That ladders up to the larger trend of social media and “TikTok-able” videos. I know there is a lot of talk about the future of TikTok, but whatever happens with it, the move to video has become so important to younger consumers.