bake - March 2015 - PAN41

SHOPPERS INSIGHT
What Hispanics
Feel About Spending
Hispanics are gaining more optimism
with improvements in the US
economy, signaling positive signs for
food spending among Hispanics this
year. For bakeries, this translates into
a tremendous opportunity to tap into
this increased optimism with innovative
promotions and new products. It's
important to keep up on such trends
to know how, when and where to
focus your promotional and merchandising
activities.
According to ThinkNow
Research, survey participants were
asked where they thought the US
economy would be heading in
2015, and 46% of Hispanics said
they thought it would be better.
Interestingly, within the Hispanic
population, the answer was largely
driven by their level of acculturation,
with 50% of low- and mediumacculturated
Hispanics saying "the
economy will be better," but only
35% of the highly-acculturated group
feeling that way.
Furthermore, their optimism is
growing, up from 37% last year to
46% this year.
Hispanics are also powering
growth in small businesses. The
number of Hispanic-owned fi rms in
the US was expected to grow from
2.7 million in 2007 to an expected
3.2 million in 2013, according to a
report released by the United States
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and
Geoscape, a business intelligence fi rm.
The average annual increase in the
number of Hispanic fi rms was 6.7%,
compared to 3.1% growth for all businesses
in the same time period, the
report notes.
WHAT THEY BUY
Mintel states in the new report,
Today's Specialty Food Consumer
2014, that the 145 million people who
say they've bought specialty foods this
year truly represent an 8% advance
over 2013 - even though this new
59% portion of U.S. consumers seems
at fi rst glance to be lower than last
year's 74%.
The most likely buyers of
specialty foods continue to be
Millennials (70% of people between
18 and 34 years old), affl uent (70%
of households earnings $75,000 or
more per year) and Hispanic (71%).
Further, Geoscape reports that
over 993,000 Hispanics within the
United States will turn age 18 in 2015.
Hispanics will account for nearly 23
percent of all persons turning 18
within the United States.
Hispanic population tends to be
more youthful than the population
as a whole. According to the Pew
Research Hispanic Trends Project,
published in June 2014, the median
age for Hispanics is 27, compared
to 37 for the general population.
"The younger the person, the more
likely they are to be Hispanic," says
Cesar Melgoza, founder and CEO of
Geoscape. Consider this in how you
present your business in marketing
materials and at your stores, offi ces
or other physical locations.
CATER TO UNIQUENESS
Don't use a one-size-fitsall
approach in marketing and
promoting your bakery products to
Hispanic customers. Someone who,
for instance, recently immigrated
from Mexico and lives in Texas
may respond to specifi c marketing
messages differently than someone
of Chilean origin who was born in
the US and grew up in Chicago. It
is important to identify your target
customers and tailor your marketing
campaigns to speak directly to them.
You may also want to focus your
marketing on geographic regions
where your target customers tend to
live and work, to get more out of the
dollars you invest. According to the
Pew report, for instance, nearly half
of people of Cuban origin in the US
live in the Miami-Dade County area.
Every business owner can
benefi t by looking for opportunities
to reach a more multicultural
population. "The bulk of the growth
in the US, both in population and
consumer spending, is coming
from new mainstream consumers,"
Melgoza points out.
MARCH 15 | PANADERIA
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bake - March 2015

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