Food by the Numbers
I collect food statistics the way frugal people collect various odds and ends — you never know when you might need them. In my case, stats come in handy when writing a food story or for a new business pitch to project future behaviors or to understand current ones. Here are some interesting tidbits, in no particular order.
$624 BILLION:The size of the food selling business — The Wall Street Journal, 11/21/05
87,656:The number of new food and drink product launches in 2005 around the world, an increase of 8 percent over 2004, according to Mintel Global New Product Database.
$14 BILLION:Organic food sales in 2005 totaled nearly $14 billion, or 2.5 percent of all retail food sales, according to the Organic Trade Association’s 2006 Manufacturer Survey. Organic food sales for 2006 is projected to reach nearly $16 billion.
$6.5 BILLION:California wine shipments to U.S. markets (441 million gallons — Inside Bay Area, 4/04/06
6.3 BILLION:Number of gallons of beer Americans bought last year, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights, a trade newsletter. Bud Light, Budweiser, Miller Lite, Coors Light and Natural Light were the top five brands.
58 PERCENT:The percentage of consumers who purchased specialty foods. Consumers aged 25 to 44 are the most likely to purchasers — Specialty Food Magazine, 10/05
79 MILLION:In 2046, the number of baby boomers projected who will be between the ages of 82 to 100 — USA Today, 10/28/05
40 MILLION:The projected number of telecomuters by 2010 (in 2003, about 23.5 million Americans worked from home during business hours at least one day a month, according to the International Telework Association and Council)
46 PERCENT:The percentage of adults surveyed in January by the Harvard School of Public Health who would stop eating chicken if avian flu infected the U.S. poultry industry, even knowing that public health officials don’t think it’s likely that you could catch the virus from eating infected chicken and that producers say sick birds would be destroyed and not sold. — The New York Times, 3/21/06
141 MILLION: The number of entries you get searching “food blog” on Google. The number has proliferated from the more than 8 million found by the Washington Post one year ago.
