Taco Bell, we've got your next promo: The 4.9th Meal.
According to Sally Grimes, chief innovation officer of Hillshire Brands, gone is the breakfast-lunch-dinner model I schedule my entire day around. (Who doesn't wake up and immediately wonder, 'OMG, WHAT AM I EATING FOR LUNCH?') She tells AdAge that eating habits are changing. “The average American eats 4.9 meals per day,” she claims. And I'm pretty sure she means real American meals, not those “five small meals a day” that health gurus often push. She also mentions another hardly surprising but just as terrifying fact: The majority of Americans spend a total of 27 minutes on meal prep for an entire day. Also, we're eating meat. Disgusting amounts of meat.
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“The way consumers are eating today is completely different, and what that means when it comes to meat-centric, or protein-centric foods, is that we have to ensure that they deliver against what we call spontaneous consumption opportunities,” Grimes says. “So that is where we are working on convenience, portability, smart shortcuts [and] time-saving opportunities to ensure the consumer can get that 'cravability' they have for meat into their new lifestyle.”
Don't worry. Hillshire and other companies are ensuring that “food” is being shoveled into our faces at all hours. Read the full interview here.
