Consumer Food Insights Report: Out-of-stock foods rate drops for second straight year
Consumers reported a 9.5% out-of-stock rate for foods in 2024. This figure dropped from 12.3% in 2023 and 19.3% in 2022, according to the December 2024 Consumer Food Insights Report (CFI).
Share of Consumers Reporting an Out-of-stock Item in The Last 30 Days, Jan. 2022 - Dec. 2024.
Purdue University's Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability
The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability(CFDAS) assesses food spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural and food policies, and trust in information sources. Purdue experts conducted and evaluated the survey, which included 1,200 consumers across the U.S.
“Events such as the avian flu, new geopolitical conflicts, continued pandemic recovery and the 2022 spike in food inflation significantly impacted the food supply chain,” said the report’s lead author, Joseph Balagtas, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue and director of CFDAS.
“The decrease in the annual average stockout shows less volatility over the past year and highlights the resiliency of our food system.”
In its latest survey, CFDAS asked consumers about their diet plans for the new year. The new report also looks back on 2024 consumer trends, including out-of-stock trends and foods people have limited in their diets.
Almost half of American adults said they have a food or nutrition-related resolution going into 2025. Most resolutions focused on limiting or increasing the intake of foods such as sugar and vegetables, respectively. The data was disaggregated by self-reported general health: excellent/very good, good and fair/poor.
“Two-thirds of consumers with a resolution are motivated to improve their health and slightly less than half are motivated to lose weight or improve their appearance,” Balagtas said. “Consumers who are in excellent or very good health are more likely to be motivated for reasons unrelated to their own personal health.” These reasons include helping others with their health, gaining environmental consciousness, satisfying the wishes of family or friends, or trying something new.
Similar to last year’s findings, most consumers want to increase their intake of healthy food and drink, including fruits, vegetables and water. Fewer consumers plan to make any changes in their consumption of certain staple foods and beverages such as eggs, dairy, coffee and tea.
New questions last month also fall under the topic of health and diets as CFDAS researchers explored the use of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss and their impact on consumer food spending, preferences and satisfaction. GLP-1 drugs are typically used to treat health conditions such as diabetes but have become popular for weight loss.
Around 14% of respondents said they either have taken or currently take GLP-1 drugs. One of the intended effects of these drugs is to reduce appetite. Indeed, consumers report a decrease in the amount of food they purchase while taking the drugs. Previous research has shown this same trend in household food spending when at least one person in the household uses a GLP-1 drug. Consumers also report buying healthier foods and eating out less as a result of these drugs.
The sustainable food purchasing index returned to its historical average of 69/100 in December, said Elijah Bryant, a survey research analyst at CFDAS and a co-author of the report. “The index has remained stable across all months of the CFI, showing that sustainable consumer behavior has remained relatively the same over time,” Bryant said.
Consumers who said they were in excellent health tend to score higher on the index (73) than those who say their health is poor (63). “The largest difference between these groups comes in the nutrition subindicator, which reaffirms the correlation between food purchasing decisions that are considered healthy — such as avoiding empty calories and buying diverse foods — and personal health,” Bryant said.
Average annual food expenditure in 2024 was $193 per week, up from $187 per week in 2023 and $178 per week in 2022. With the increase in food prices over the last two years, consumers need to spend more at the grocery store for their usual basket of goods.
Consumer inflation expectations for the year ahead increased by .3 percentage points in December. The most recent report of the consumer price index estimates annual food inflation at 2.4%, also up 0.3 percentage points from the last Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Food insecurity rose slightly in December to 14%. Food insecurity is highest among consumers of poor or fair health (26%), compared to consumers in good health (12%) or better (8%).
“This is likely a result of the correlation between income and health, as those who have greater incomes tend to have an easier time affording enough nutritionally adequate food,” Bryant said. The direction of this relationship can go both ways, as indicated by previous research.
“Those with very low incomes are more susceptible to food insecurity and are more likely to be in worse health. This can make working a job to earn enough income to buy good foods difficult, creating a negative feedback loop,” he said. Consumers in excellent or very good health also report checking food labels for nutrition facts, natural or clean labels, origin, ingredients, and how the food was produced more frequently than consumers in worse health.
The new survey further shows that the overall direction and magnitude of the average trust scores among the five least and most trusted sources of information on healthy and sustainable foods has wavered little over time. Fast food companies tend to score low on the index, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and primary physicians score high.
“With the upcoming change in presidential administrations in 2025, it will be interesting to see how or if consumer trust in these government organizations shifts at all or if consumers remain confident in the information from these sources, many of which will likely be under new leadership in the coming months,” Bryant said.
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