Eating in: retirees spend time cooking and baking

With more leisure time, retirees are spending more time cooking and baking – and eating too.

The Nielsen Company global survey of online consumers across 60 countries asked retirees what their priorities were (www.finchannel.com March 31, 2014). The response from most retirees over 65 years of age (75% of them) was that staying physically and mentally fit was important, followed by spending time with the family (58% of respondents), eating healthy meals (45%), and maintaining an active social life (37%).

The Nielsen Consumer & Shopper Insights survey also studied their shopping habits. It showed that consumers over 65 years bought significantly higher amounts of cooking and baking products than expected, with most being ready-made and quick-bake products. With dollar volume indexes, where the norm is 100, in the United States some consumers doubled the average amount of baking products bought at supermarkets.

For example, in the United States, pie crust mixes topped the list, doubling the norm at 233 index points, followed by canned peaches (229), canned cherries (187), canned pudding pie filling (160), canned pie and pastry filling (160), coffee cake mixes (160), and frozen whipped toppings (151).

Another category showing higher sales index points than expected for this age group was alcoholic beverages. According to the Nielsen report, the top beverages for retirees were vermouth (239 index points), dessert wine (212), and scotch (182).

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