Food and Drink Market Research

Everybody has to eat and drink. And as consumers, we make small decisions about what to choose, pretty much every day. Fast moving consumer goods fieldwork, in particular the food and beverage sector, is "bread and butter" work for Saros.

We do recruit a great many participants for food and drink research project The way food is purchased and the role of the gate-keeper as main shopper is also changing, with more snacking and eating on the move going on, as well as a move to niche markets for different diets and lifestyle approaches. The big weekly family shop is declining in favour of smaller shops from more local stores, in many cases. We can help you recruit against specific behaviours for food and drink shopping in the home and out of it.

Food and drink groups are always popular amongst participants, so we are careful to screen people precisely and accurately according to your recruitment criteria. Will you be looking at packaging and presentation, on or offline? If so we will make sure to get you highly engaged and creative respondents if you need them, to come up with new designs. And we recognise the significance of long-term market associations with food and drink brands, and the way these can be culturally specific, even in a global marketplace.

Will you be tasting food and drink? We can make sure you get respondents who are free of dietary restrictions and allergies, we have specific banks of questions to screen out anyone who might have problems with tasting, or be unable to give appropriate feedback on your product. Research tasting alcoholic drinks of course brings its own issues, and we can help steer you through these to safe and responsible fieldwork with the right participants.

Sometimes of course it is a more niche type of food consumer you might need for your research. We have successfully recruited projects for vegans, paleo-dieters, teetotallers, strict observers of Kosher requirements, and parents of diabetic children, to take part in research about specialist food products and needs.

As well as the usual focus group methodologies commonly employed by food retailers we also have extensive experience recruiting accompanied shops whether in supermarkets or specialist retailers, as well as ‘dine-alongs’ and home-cooking encounters. The preparing and sharing of food and drink has such profound social roles and associations, we can accommodate any methodology that will help you get to the heart of your client’s brand and everything it signifies.