Food and drink
Food and drink is a category we know deeply. We’ve spent decades helping brands and retailers understand their shoppers, navigate their categories, and make decisions that hold up in the real world. From the UK’s biggest grocers to food and drink start-ups, we bring genuine category expertise to every brief.
From supplier to consumer
This sector is vast. The dynamics of grocery retail and suppliers differ hugely to those serving out of home occasions. Whilst branded food manufacturers face distinct challenges to retailers building their own label proposition.
We work across all of it – from FMCG brands, to grocers, and hospitality – giving us a unique understanding of how those different contexts connect. We also have strong, established partnerships with the UK’s major grocers, which means we can bring a joined-up picture of how shoppers behave across the full retail landscape.
Sensory cues
Food and drink is unlike almost any other category to research. Many of the decisions shoppers make are instinctive and heavily influenced by sensory cues; what something looks like on shelf, how it smells, even a memory a taste triggers. Subconscious, automatic, and almost impossible to capture through traditional research methods alone.
That’s why being in the moment matters so much. We design our food and drink research around the actual contexts in which decisions get made – whether watching at-shelf behaviours during assisted shops, observing meals through dine-a-longs, or seeing app browsing real-time.
The new value equation
Years of price inflation have fundamentally shifted the meaning of ‘value’ in food and drink – a recalibration that looks different for every consumption occasion. In grocery, shoppers are re-evaluating Own Brand and becoming savvy to promotions. And in hospitality, prices are increasingly scrutinised against the at-home alternatives.
We research value beyond price – delving into perceived quality, emotional reward, and occasion. We design research that gets at the real trade-offs consumers are making, to help brands sit on the right side of the value equation.
Our experience
We’ve worked with some of the UK’s most recognised food, drink, and grocery brands across an enormous range of briefs. Here’s just a few examples of our work.
