Aussies Go Bananas For Bananas

Mick McCabe, Homescan Shopper Panel Product Leader, Nielsen
04-09-2014
Consumer
A recent Nielsen shopper study on the top 50 selling grocery products revealed that bananas are the most popular household purchase with 93% of Australian households purchasing an average of 19 kg of the tropical fruit every year.
Other items that dominate our shopping trolleys and baskets include: fresh fruit and vegetables, minced meat, milk, bread and sandwich fillers.
Despite well-documented health warnings regarding Australia’s obesity epedemic, it’s somewhat encouraging to see that fresh fruit and vegetables made up 22 of the top 50 categories while junk food ranked lower in the list of consumers’ top purchases. Potato chips (ranked number 16) was the most popular of the unhealthy purchases, followed by confectionary bars (30), blocks of chocolate (32), flavoured snacks (37), plain sweet biscuits (38) and chocolate biscuits (39).
Using Nielsen’s Homescan Shopper Panel, we tracked the most frequent grocery purchases for 10,000 households who are geographically and demographically representative of the Australian population. The panel also tracks purchases across ALL grocery outlets – an important factor as many shoppers visit multiple stores to secure specials, favourites that are out of stock at their usual store, or exclusive brands.
Our research shows that almost two in three shoppers venture into more than one of the four major chains in the same week. And one in three grocery trips include multiple retailers on the same day.