No matter where you live, food is a hot topic of conversation. From the latest viral recipes to the topic of sustainability, which we explore in depth in our 2024 Consumer Insights: Food & Beverage report, there’s no shortage of interest and concern when it comes to how we feed ourselves.
There’s perhaps no topic more pressing and universal than that of how food prices and other costs of living are rising. To learn more about how consumers are feeling, thinking, and talking about food prices, we analyzed relevant English-language keywords mentioned online and in the media from August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2024. Read on as we dig into our findings on:
Conversation sentiment
The conversation across selected social media sources
The conversation in selected countries
Global news coverage trends
Takeaways
Check out our food and beverage report to dive into one of the biggest food and beverage topics in consumer conversations.
Conversation sentiment
There were 16.2 million mentions of food costs, prices, and inflation on social media sources, forums, comments, and blogs worldwide from August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2024, an increase of 368% YoY.
The sentiment of those mentions is largely negative for obvious reasons — higher food prices negatively impact consumers’ lives.
However, sentiment was not the same across sources. Mentions on Reddit and X and in comments and forums were more negative than positive. The notable outlier is Pinterest, where the conversation was overwhelmingly positive. More on that below.
The conversation across selected social media sources
Unlike other digital destinations where users often go to share news, find advice, and vent their frustrations, Pinterest is mainly where users go to find inspiration, an inherently upbeat activity. The prevalence of keywords like “budget” and “home” and hashtags like #weeknightdinner and #easyrecipe highlights how price-conscious consumers use the site to answer a recurring question: What should I make to eat that’s tasty and affordable? (For one example, check out this post.)
On Reddit, which has its largest user base in the United States, the cost of eating out and delivery was a top conversation. The three most engaging posts, including the one shown below, discussed price hikes for fast food and delivery options.
Together they generated about 207,500 engagement actions, including about 10,700 comments about users’ increasingly negative perceptions of prices at leading chains and shifting habits around going out to eat.
X
On X, the majority of relevant posts were reposts, which often amplify messages that users think are important or worthy of discussion. The most reposted was the one below, which sparked comments praising the founder of Arizona Iced Tea and discussing the prices of the drink at their local stores.
The conversation in selected countries
Focusing on mentions of relevant keywords in English, our analysis found that the countries that racked up the highest volumes of food price and inflation conversation were the United States, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India.
And while the conversations have commonalities — such as frequent mentions of their national leaders and largely negative sentiment — they differ in some notable ways.
United States
In the United States, the price of eggs was a lightning rod in the online food price discussion. The largest spike in conversation came on November 22, 2023. That day mentions surged six times higher than average as news broke of a U.S. federal jury’s verdict that major egg producers conspired to drive up egg prices. Though the legal case focused on activity from 2004 to 2008, the story caught fire thanks to its relevance to media coverage and online discussion throughout 2023 about rising egg prices. One of the most engaging pieces of content from that day was the below post on X contrasting the story with claims that egg prices had increased due to supply chain issues or inflation.
Though the post conflated current egg pricing with the decades old actions at issue in the suit, it resonated with current consumer frustrations, generating more than 47,000 engagement actions.
Nigeria
While eggs were a major focus in the U.S. food price discussion, that distinction went to rice in Nigeria, as seen in the word cloud above. Many of the posts mentioning rice also mention its price as a significant factor in the economy and inflation. Some posts discuss the distribution of rice as a solution to food inflation, while others question the effectiveness of this approach.
Of the top two conversation spikes, the second-largest occurred on February 15, 2024, when President Bola Tinubu met with state governors at the State House to discuss rising food costs and inflation. Tinubu’s post on X about the meeting generated the highest engagement, with more than 32,000 actions.
The largest spike occurred a few months later on June 3, 2024, when the nation’s leading labor unions, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), initiated a general strike calling for an increased federal minimum wage. The strike was sparked, in part, by inflation and increased costs of living, including food costs.
“Raw yam,” “bad meat,” “food inflation,” “whole tuber,” and “can’t buy food” were among the top keywords in the food price conversation that day. The strike came to an end the following month when the government settled with the labor unions on a higher minimum wage.
United Kingdom
The largest spike in the overall UK food price conversation came on January 6, 2024. Mentions jumped above 8,100, up from about 3,800 the previous day, thanks to the release of multiple articles and posts discussing the negative impact of new Brexit rules on the cost and availability of fresh fruit and vegetables. One of the most shared links was the below explainer news segment posted by ITV News on X.
Notably, after X, forums were a top source of food price conversations in the United Kingdom, with an average of about 1,760 mentions per day. The top forum was thefarmingforum.co.uk, where users go to discuss all things related to farming and agriculture. Many posts discussed beef and lamb prices, with mentions of price trackers and monitoring market conditions.
Canada
Canada’s food price conversation was the most critical of the five, with 58% negative sentiment. The single largest day for food price conversations was September 15, 2023, when mentions surged above 7,380 in one day compared to 282 mentions the day before. That increase in volume was due to a rise in debate of how federal policies impact food prices, sparked by the announcement that CEOs of Canada’s five biggest grocery chains were expected to meet with government leaders to discuss how to stabilize prices.
The buzz around that meeting helped make Loblaws, Walmart, and Costco some of the most mentioned entities in the conversation. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the most mentioned entity of all.
India
In India, the biggest day for food price conversations was July 15, 2024, when mentions spiked eight times higher than average. The increase in volume was due to the state of Karnataka government's price hikes and fare increases, including on milk prices, water bills, property taxes, and more.
In the resulting public criticism and discussion, milk and vegetables emerged as the most highly mentioned food items.
Global news coverage trends
Looking at the volumes of news and broadcast media coverage of food costs and prices, mentions from July 2023 through July 2024 are lower than in the previous period, but still much higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Notably, while “people” and “market” were once top keywords in coverage of food prices, inflation has been the most-mentioned term over the last three periods analyzed. Looking at the past year of news and broadcast coverage, there were about 1.72 million mentions of inflation, down 35% from the previous period. One of the most-shared news stories about inflation, mentioned more than 2,400 times in other articles and posts, was an Associated Press article from April 27, 2023 titled, “Food prices fall on world markets but not on kitchen tables.”
Meanwhile, the relevant news coverage that had the furthest estimated reach, at 246 million, were The Weather Channel’s June 20, 2024 video about climate change’s impact on banana prices and March 21, 2024 video about a Texas wildfire’s impact on beef prices.
Takeaways
Leading grocery and fast food chains join politicians and government departments as some of the top entities mentioned in many facets of the food price conversation. The world is looking to this mixture of the public and private sector for answers on where food prices and inflation are headed.
Some of the content generating the most positive feelings are those that offer immediate remedies, like budget-friendly recipes and tips on where to shop. However, the focus and tenor of the overall food price conversation varies from source to source and market to market. Brands should drill down on what narratives and topics are most visible with their particular audience to formulate messaging and strategies.
Looking for more insight into the food and beverage sector? Dive into the topic of sustainability in our 2024 Consumer Insights: Food & Beverage report and learn more about Meltwater for Food & Beverage.
