Brand Overview: Food: Inc Impact of COVID-19 - UK - May 2020
Overview
 
What you need to know
COVID-19 has opened up a number of opportunities for brands to tap into the ‘next normal’. In the short term, people may be seeking familiarity and comfort from the food they eat and the brands they recognise, but it is crucial that brands use this time to create longer-term opportunities.

Two of these longer-term opportunities are health and the creation of a value-led proposition. The virus will add impetus for people to take care of their health on a more holistic level, creating the chance for food brands to assist in making larger lifestyle changes around general health. The impending recession will create some drift towards own-label, but brands need to focus on value rather than price in order to maintain a strong position. Brands can highlight heritage, authenticity and innovation to remain essential to consumers, and to convince them that they offer something that own-label cannot replicate. 

Key issues covered in this Report
●	The impact of COVID-19 on consumer behaviour and how it will influence what consumers are looking from food brands
●	How leading food brands score on metrics like usage, trust, satisfaction, likely recommendation and perceived differentiation
●	The top scoring brands for particular personality traits, including innovation, value, quality, and taste
●	The leaders on hot topics in the food sector – natural, indulgence, ethics, and health and wellness

Products covered in this Report
Since December 2017, Mintel has conducted brand research on more than 100 brands operating in food markets. As well as consumers’ attitudes towards brands, we investigate how many people have used those brands, how positive their experience of the brand was and whether they would recommend that brand.

Research is run at a brand level, rather than based on a particular product. So rather than asking specifically about people’s perception of Hovis’ bread loaves or Cathedral City’s extra mature Cheddar cheese, for example, we ask about their overall perception of the Hovis and Cathedral City brands.

Data in this Report is drawn from fieldwork conducted between December 2017 and February 2020. Many brands have been covered on multiple occasions and, unless otherwise stated, Mintel’s data refers to the most recent wave of research in which a given brand featured. Please refer to the Report Appendix for details of the Reports from which the brand data has been taken.