Analytics, Estonia, Markets and Companies, Society

The study "Estonian residents' food product shopping preferences and attitudes 2014", commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and carried out by TNS Emor, gave an overview of shopping habits and attitudes.

Mostly Estonian families buy groceries two or three times a week; nearly one-fifth of families buy food products every day.

The main food shopping places are larger (three or more cash registers) grocery stores, which are the main shopping places for three families out of four.

Compared to previous years, the amount of people who shop for food daily has decreased and the amount of people who visit shops once a week or more seldom has increased.

The Minister for Rural Life Urmas Kruuse said that the latter shows that consumers have started to buy more goods at once, which is made possible by higher wages than earlier.

The survey also showed that consumers value in decision-making the freshness, flavour, and quality of food while three quarters of consumers consider price very important.

Just like last year, nearly 90% of consumers prefer local food products when shopping. 7-8 out of ten consumers perceive that local food products represent the majority of their purchases. In the younger consumer segments, local food products preference is, however, not as strong as among the elderly. Consumers with higher education level evaluated the share of local food products as significantly higher than the average.