Home » Cheese Study: Obese Aussies More Likely To Buy The Sliced Or Shredded Variety

12 December, 2016

Cheese Study: Obese Aussies More Likely To Buy The Sliced Or Shredded Variety

As regular readers of B&T would attest, we love any cheese news that happens to come our way. So imagine our joy when this Roy Morgan Research arrived titled “What your cheese choices say about you!”

According to the research, Christmas is prime time for cheese eating in Australia. Its research found that 76.3 per cent of Aussie shoppers bought some sort of cheese in an average month.

And it would appear we Aussies don’t care for our cheese two fancy-pants! The study found that the good old block of cheese was the most popular choice with 55.1 per cent of shoppers saying they’d whacked a lump of Coon in the trolley of late. Sliced came second at 35.8 per cent and grated was third at 33.1 per cent.

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According to Roy Morgan, New Zealand and British-born Australians are both 23 per cent more likely than the population average to buy block cheese in an average four weeks. In contrast, Asian-born Australians are a whopping 72 per cent less likely to buy it.

On the other hand, consumers who buy sliced cheese are said not to be big on cooking, so the absolute ease and convenience of cheese slices would suit them fine. While, as you’d expect, sliced cheese was popular among parents of small children.

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However, in what could only be deemed as bad news for cheese lovers, respondents with a Body Mass Index classified as obese were 20 per cent more likely to buy the sliced or shredded variety. The more petite or svelte cheese-eater tended to go for softer cheeses or creamed cheese.

The study found that soft cheese is favoured by people who like to drink wine with their meals and entertain at home, while cottage/ricotta cheese’s elevated popularity with European-born Australians, as well as people who like to eat healthily and are concerned about their weight, is similarly predictable.

Commenting on the cheese findings, Roy Morgan’s communications director Norman Morris commented: “Cheese buyers are a diverse bunch, and in today’s gradually shrinking cheese market, brands need to ensure that they are marketing their various cheese products to the right target audience. For example, a quick glimpse at the table above confirms that a grocery buyer who purchases soft cheese is focused on entirely different aspects of the culinary experience than someone who buys shredded cheese.

“The ethnic background of cheese buyers is also interesting. Obviously a higher number of Australian-born Aussies buy cheese than any other group, but higher proportions of people from non-Australian backgrounds buy it: with Kiwis, British- and European-born Aussies, and North Americans all distinguishing themselves for different cheeses. Without exception, people of Asian descent are well below average for buying cheese.

“The table above also hints at another key trend: cheese’s popularity with older Aussies. Roy Morgan data reveals that the under-25 age group is almost 30 per cent less likely than the average grocery buyer to purchase cheese of any kind, with 25-34 year-olds also below average,” he said.

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