Jul 1, 2005 12:00 PM

Tweens may be tiny, but they influence more than two-thirds of food & beverage decisions in the home.

We are doing research across the twelve life stages, from Newbies 0- 24 months all the way up to the Winding Down—those 70 and greater in age,” said Mary Lynne Shafer, marketing research manager of Cargill Inc. (Wayzata, Minn.). “We are putting research and ingredient focus across all of them, but at the Institute of Food Technologies in New Orleans, we highlighted the two larger segments—boomers and tweens.”

Cargill opted to focus on tweens (ages 8- 12) for several reasons. First, the population segment is large and stable. “There are 16.3 million tweens in the U.S. in 2005,” noted Shafer, adding that the number is expected to remain the same in 2015. “As they continue in the next life stages, they will continue to be a fairly large group.” Second, tweens are disproportionately influential in food buying decisions. “They influence over 67% of food and beverage household decisions,” Shafer observed. “In and of themselves, they only represent about 6% of the population and their actual food spend is less than 1%, but their influence is huge.” A third reason for Cargill’s interest in the tween market is concern over health. Approximately 15% of all children ages 6-14 in the U.S. are overweight. Currently, 16% of the American population is diabetic or prediabetic— and tweens are a key factor driving up diabetes rates nationally.

Sign in to
view the full article

User Name

Password

Remember Me

Sign In

Why Join?

1. In-depth perspective on the $226 billion global nutrition industry
2. Access to weekly news updates
3. Downloadable data files, presentations, and more