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The UK
still leads the ethnic foods market, but a new report from
Datamonitor claims that the British love affair with ethnic food is
now spreading across Europe, with overall growth pitching at 12 per
cent and estimated to hit EUR7 bn in 2009.
In Spain
alone, the value of packaged ethnic foods is expected to treble by
2009, from €134 in 2004 to €474 in 2009.
Ethnic
packaged food products currently make up only 0.9 per cent
(€3.9bn) of Europe's €450 billion packaged food market.
Average annual
growth in consumer spending on ethnic packaged foods in Europe has
been running at a 14 per cent since 1999 - a rate far higher than 5
per cent in the US.
Datamonitor
predicts the ethnic packaged food market in Europe will grow to 1.4
per cent share of total food sales in the next four years.
The UK
accounts for over half the total European packaged ethnic food market
and is the only European country where ethnic packaged foods
currently account for over one per cent share of overall European
retail packaged food sales. Datamonitor expects this to increase to
almost 4 per cent in 2009 and of no surprise, the analysts predict
that dynamic growth will be lead by the UK, with the average Brit now
spending £35 a year on ethnic food for home consumption.
The fastest
growth in ethnic packaged foods will be seen in Spain, predicted to
more than treble from €134m to €474m in 2009. Italy will
also see strong growth, 26.5 per cent to 2009, with France and The
Netherlands showing 11.8 and 11.9 per cent respectively.
Leading
ethnic cuisines
Indian food is
the second most popular, driven largely by its enormous popularity in
the UK. Chinese food accounts for 39 per cent of European ethnic food
consumption, while Indian food accounts for 28 per cent, and Mexican
food accounts for another 20 per cent.
There is a
major difference between countries: in the UK, Indian food accounts
for 43 per cent of the market, but it accounts for less than 10 per
cent in every other European country.
In all Europe
with the exception of the UK, Mexican food is the second most popular
ethnic cuisine, reflecting its accessibility and its popularity in
the US (and its associations with the US), despite the extremely low
proportion of Mexican immigrants in Europe.
According to
Leatherhead Foods the current European market for retail foods is 43%
Chinese/Oriental ; 27% Mexican/American ; 25% Indian and 6%
African/Middle Eastern. Total retail expenditure in Europe was Eur
3.88bn as against EUR 2.34bn in UK.
However the
importance of the foodservice sector (restaurant etc) in UK can be
seen from the figure for ethnic sales in 2006 of £5bn.
Indian food is
the leading sector in the market, accounting for 47.1% of all ethnic
food sales in 2005, followed by Chinese at 30%. These two sectors
have dominated the market for 30 years and show no signs of
relinquishing their dominance. The title `the next big thing' has
been bestowed on a number of cuisines over the past 20 years,
including Tex-Mex, Thai and Oriental, but none has emerged to pose
any real threat to the `big two'. Indeed, sales of Thai food appear
to be stagnating, reflecting a lack of new product development (NPD).
Marketeers are now touting North African food as an emerging sector
and sales are certainly growing quickly - albeit from a very low base.
GROWTH AREAS
In recent
years pundits have been looking to Thai, Japanese, Caribbean and
Mexican to be the "Next Big Thing". Thai has made the
greatest inroads but seems to be plateauing as it becomes more
commonplace and less exciting and challenging. Japanese continues its
growth but does not seem likely to become a national favourite and
Caribbean cuisine does not have the required restaurant base or media
and supermarket promotion.
The most
likely of those mentioned to achieve real growth is Mexican because
the Tex/Mex style of cuisine we tend to get in UK is readily
understood by the public and represents value for money in themed
surroundings.
In 2005, ready
meals accounted for 39% of value sales, with most of this share
accounted for by chilled ready meals. The second largest sector was
that of dips, such as salsa and guacamole.
Main media
advertising expenditure on Mexican/Tex-Mex foods grew by 7% between
2000 and 2004, to reach £6.3 million.
10% of all
adults eat Mexican food regularly at present, compared to 49% who
regularly eat Chinese food and 39% who eat Indian food on a regular basis.
The Mexican
food sector continues to increase at a healthy rate, estimated to
have grown by 47% between 2000 and 2005. What has aided this
embryonic market is the sustained growth in interest in ethnic foods,
coupled with a demand for higher quality convenience foods, and, in
particular, the popularity of snack style foods .One of the most
popular Mexican dishes is the tortilla, which was traditionally eaten
by hand, making an ideal snack food. Similarly, many other Tex-Mex
dishes, such as nachos and dips, have become popular as snacks and
for informal meal occasions. This has increased the popularity of the
genre, particularly among younger people. Growth has therefore been
fuelled by all product sectors, and not just ready meals, as is the
case with most ethnic foods.
The two other
contenders for NBT are Spanish, which will come as no great surprise
given the growth in popularity of tapas, and Malaysian.
The growth of
Spanish tapas fulfils all the requirements of an NBT except perhaps
value for money in some restaurants. The La Tasca group has tapped
successfully in to this market and the demand for tapas style cuisine
remains strong, fuelled by health concerns.
Malaysian is
an example of a cuisine that should be a contender for NBT but has so
far failed to look like achieving it. The Rindstafel and dishes like
Beef Rendang hold as much sales potential as chicken tikka masala or
chow mien in terms of taste and suitability to the modern British
palate but the restaurant base is quite small and supermarkets have
not yet really identified it, meaning public information is very sparse.
However, new
efforts by the Malaysian government to promote its food and drink may
well act as the catalyst for rapid growth.
Overall, the
British love for the tastes and excitement of ethnic foods will
continue to grow unabated especially as the older generation who were
unfamiliar with ethnic cuisines in their formative years, give way to
a population that could not image life without them.
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