While spending time with family is still important to Kiwis, more are hoping to spend time with friends or at the beach this year, according to new insights from a survey of over 1,700 PAK’nSAVE, New World, and Four Square customers.
Only 39% of respondents plan to spend time with family this year, a significant drop from 54% in 2023. The remaining 61% intend to unwind, catch up with friends, or enjoy the outdoors.
Foodstuffs New Zealand Head of Customer Insights and Intelligence Chris Day says 2024 has been a taxing year for many, and it appears there’s a bigger focus on ensuring the upcoming holiday includes a bit of downtime.
“Perhaps the post-Covid glow where we were all craving family connection has lost some shine and having a decent break is taking more of a priority.
“Kiwis are also telling us they’re keen to wrap up Christmas Day gatherings by the afternoon, and will, on average be catering to fewer people this year.
“The insights help us understand any shifts in consumer behaviour. You can see that given the trend towards spending more time relaxing means that meals might also be more casual this year.”
What we’ll be eating
Foodstuffs North Island Head of Meat and Produce Brigit Corson says this year’s more relaxed approach to Christmas will influence what is served this festive season.
“Strawberries will peak in late November with the tail end running into Christmas after a better growing season and more plants in the ground compared with last year,” she says.
“In the main 16 weeks of the season, we’ll sell over five million punnets, so they are a super popular fruit. Increasingly Kiwis are adding other berries into the mix for Christmas like blueberries, raspberries and blackberries as well.”
Christmas Cherries come from Central Otago and Brigit says the volume available depends on the sunshine and when the warmth kicks in.
“Last year cherries were in eight per cent of all New World and 11% of PAK’nSAVE baskets so they are a very important Christmas item for our customers,” she says.
Keeping things less formal is likely to influence the type of protein we serve as well – although Brigit adds ham still rates highly on the list with around 500 tonnes of ham sold in the North Island last year.
“The export meat market for lamb and beef has recovered, meaning local prices will be higher than last year. Despite this, lamb will remain a firm favourite for our customers at Christmas,” she says.
“Last year we sold over 300 tonnes of lamb legs in the two weeks leading into Christmas. However, we anticipate a little under that this year given higher prices will impact volume. I think many of us grabbed more than one leg with the fantastic pricing on offer last year. This year will see a more typical demand return.
“Salmon is also popular with whole salmon sales doubling in the lead up to Christmas. Prawns for the barbeque or crayfish for those that want to splurge are also favourite options.”
Christmas by the numbers
• Christmas meals will be mostly wrapped up by 3pm, with more than 80% of us intending to host either breakfast, brunch or lunch as our main meal.
• Ham is still the star of the show, the highest –rated must-have this Christmas ahead of pavlova and trifle. Around 52% of us intend to serve it as part of our main meal.
• The average number of people who’ll be dining with us and need a Christmas cracker is 7.4, down from 8.5 in 2023.
• You might want to spare a thought (or lend a hand), to the 1% of us who’ll be catering for more than 30 people this year.
• In terms of what last-minute gifts we might grab on the dash to the supermarket, chocolate, wine, gift cards and hampers are the most popular.
Methodology
This is the tenth Pulse Survey amongst Foodstuffs online panel shoppers. The team spoke with PAK’nSAVE, Four Square, and New World online panel members who are main or joint shoppers.
This survey ran from 4 October 2024 until 23 October 2024.
