Research: Most Popular Aisles and Food Categories by Food Comparisons

Following on from the last post in this series of FoodEssentials Research posts, we will further explore what people are comparing on FoodEssentials by looking at the aisles and food categories.  All food labels in the database are categorized under an Aisle / Shelf / Food Category system that helps one to locate the products more easily, such as Cereal & Breakfast Foods / Cereal / Bran Cereal.  In this post we will look at which aisles and food categories have received the most comparisons in 2009 so far.

Aisles by Food Comparison

The graph below shows the top 10 aisles by food comparison.  Aisles are the broadest type of food category and can best be understood by thinking of the aisles in a supermarket.  The results show the most popular aisles by the number of food comparisons undertaken on FoodEssentials.com.

For instance the most compared aisle is the Snacks, Cookies & Candy aisle, with 19% of all comparisons taking place in this aisle.  This is a significant difference over other aisles, though a result that is less than suprising when you consider that the food labels in this aisle are perhaps the most processed and therefore the hardest to clearly understand.  In fact, this reason can also probably explain why Drinks (15%), Soups & Canned Goods (13%), Cereal & Breakfast Food (7.3%) are also ranked so highly, and may also indicate that many of the users of the comparison tool are heads of families shopping for their children.

In total there are 18 aisles in the FoodEssentials.com database as evidenced in the below table.  It can also be speculated that the aisles that are ranked in the bottom half of the table tend towards being food labels of less processed products with fewer ingredients, making them easier to understand, requiring less need to compare the food labels.  Perhaps the only surprise in these results is the relatively low ranking of the Frozen Foods aisle (4.9%), which we would have expected to rank higher due to the complexity of ingredients in these food labels.

Most Popular Aisles by Comparisons 2009
Position	Aisle	Number of Views	Percentage
1	Snacks, Cookies & Candy	106815	16.7%
2	Drinks	83882	13.1%
3	Dairy	80384	12.6%
4	Soups & Canned Goods	74241	11.6%
5	Cereal & Breakfast Food	46567	7.3%
6	Bakery	45063	7.1%
7	Sauces, Spices & Seasonings	38085	6.0%
8	Baking Goods	36186	5.7%
9	Frozen Foods	31374	4.9%
10	Grains, Pasta & Side Dishes	29650	4.6%
11	Condiments, Oils & Salad Dressings	29012	4.5%
12	Meat & Seafood	13394	2.1%
13	Deli	12725	2.0%
14	Diet & Nutrition	9913	1.6%
15	Fresh Fruit & Vegetables	1239	0.2%
	TOTAL	638530

Food Category by Comparisons

The following graph documents the popularity of the food categories by comparisons.  There are thousands of food categories in total, each of which contains between 5 and 100 products.  Each food category is organized under a corresponding aisle and shelf, with each aisle containing several shelves, and each shelf containing several food categories.

The most popular food categories are the Flavored Potato Chips (1.4%) and the Cereal – For Kids (1.4%) both of which represent about 9000 comparisons in 2009 so far.  There does not appear to be a vast difference in volume between the top 10 but if you consider that there are aproximately 1000 categories, a volume of more than 1% of the comparisons is in fact quite significant.

Of the top 5 food categories outlined above 3 of them can be found in the Snacks, Cookies & Candies aisle highlighted above as being the most popular aisle.  In fact the top 10 categories very closely relate to the most popular aisles and further support the speculation that the most compared foods are those which are more processed and have more complicated food labels.

In the next post in the research series we will have a more detailed look in to the data, hopefully uncovering significant insight.

Data Reports:

All the data represented in this report and further data from the LabelBase and FoodChoice Databases can be purchased as reports or accessed by license.  See data.foodessentials.com or contact us for more information.

email: info@foodessentials.com Tel: +1 (312) 878-2762

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