Home baking is on the rise amongst Irish adults, with almost 1 in 5 (19%) claiming to bake at least once a week or more often. Recent research on behalf of Retail Intelligence by Empathy Research, amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,005 adults aged 18+, sought to understand the motivations for home baking and whether supermarkets and grocery stores are doing enough to cater to the needs of bakers?
While females (23%) are more likely than males (12%) to be baking once a week or more frequently, upon examination of the newer entrants to home baking, it is dominated by males. At a total level 1 in 5 (20%) bakers claim they have only started in the past few years, with males (30%) significantly ahead of females (12%) in this regard.
Motivations for baking are found in several areas, for a sizeable proportion (38%), baking is what they have always done. However, a third (33%) of home bakers claim they do so because it is healthier to bake your own food, with 1 in 5 (20%) claiming it is cheaper to bake than buy. As a result, almost half of bakers (47%) claim home baking allows them to better control the amount of money they are spending on food.
However, there appears to be some work to do for retailers in the home baking space. Just over half (51%) of home bakers claim supermarkets and grocery stores could do more to make home baking easier. Given that 7 in 10 (70%) home bakers claim they will be baking more over the winter months than compared to the summer months, it would serve retailers well to aid home bakers in-store as much as they can in the coming months.
For more information and analysis relating to this piece of research, including stores used most frequently for baking products, purchase of ready mix baking options and other attitudes to home baking, please contact Robbie Clarke at Empathy Research.
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