It’s probably fair to say that retailers target most of their advertising for “all things cooking” towards women. But are the ladies really still the driving force in the kitchen – and therefore in kitchen purchases? And which countries harbor a population that is simply bursting with cooking passion?
We asked people across 22 countries about how strongly they agree or disagree with two key statements: “I have great knowledge and experience of food and cooking” and “I am passionate about food and cooking”, along with how many hours a week they spend cooking.
While some of the traditional stereotypes hold true, there are some surprises.
Overall, women came ahead of men in all three areas, with a third agreeing that they have ‘great knowledge and experience of food and cooking’ (compared to a quarter of men) and just over that for each gender agreeing that they are passionate about food and cooking. Likewise, the women report an average 7.5 hours a week spent cooking, while men lag behind on 5 hours. But when we look at how often people cook purely for fun, we see an interesting change in that balance. Three out of ten (30 percent) of both men and women claim that they cook purely for fun at least once a week. But women then push ahead again, with an additional third (33 percent) saying they do this every day or most days, compared one in five (21 percent) of men.
There are some surprises too, in how the countries compare against each other, for knowledge, passion and time spent cooking. Of the countries surveyed, the top ten for people agreeing they have great knowledge and experience with food and cooking are:
- South Africa 50%
- India 48%
- Turkey 40%
- Ukraine 40%
- Indonesia 38%
- USA 35%
- Italy 35%
- Mexico 30%
- China 28%
- Germany 26%
However, knowledge and experience does not necessarily equate to passion. When it comes to which countries have the greatest percentage of their adult population claiming to be really passionate about food and cooking, we find the top ten looking like this:
- Italy 43%
- South Africa 42%
- Indonesia 40%
- Mexico 40%
- India 39%
- Brazil 38%
- Turkey 37%
- USA 37%
- Argentina 33%
- China 32%
Looking at the number of hours spent cooking each week, we find some additional countries featuring in the top ten, who aren’t there for claiming experience or passion:
- India 13.2
- Ukraine 13/1
- South Africa 9.5
- Indonesia 8.3
- Italy 7.1
- Spain 6.8
- Russia 6.5
- Canada 6.4
- Australia 6.1
- Poland 6.1
The full findings from this study deliver valuable insight for businesses offering products or services in the food and cooking arena. This is especially so when we combine these insights with our point of sales data for electric kitchen appliances worldwide – such as the growing demand for electric food preparation appliances that we are seeing in India, Indonesia and Italy. This combination of attitudinal insight and actual sales trends is unbeatable in revealing which markets and consumer segments present the greatest commercial opportunities for our clients.
Download the free data charts showing our Cooking findings here
