Busy Customers: Time Consumers

Too busy to ponder where the time goes, consumers eat what, when and where is most convenient.

By Scott Hume, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 10/1/2007

A significant percentage of consumers say they eat at restaurants to indulge themselves, according to R&I’s New American Diner Study. What’s likely is that the indulgence isn’t only the money spent or the opportunity to enjoy interesting new foods. Time is the indulgence.

Mono-tasking is a treat, confirmed by the fact that 23% of adults in 2006 said they checked work e-mails or voicemails on vacation days (up from 16% in 2005), according to Harris Interactive research.

American consumers work harder and have less personal time than ever. When it comes to eating, whatever saves time drives choices, whether a meal is prepared at home or purchased elsewhere. When Port Washington, N.Y.-based The NPD Group asked consumers why they chose the meals they prepare for dinner, the top answer—from 53% of the more than 50,000 adults polled—was "required little effort or easy to make." The second most-common answer was "took little or no planning."

That helps explain why the percentage of home meals made from scratch dropped from 41.3% in 1992 to 35% a decade later, and why sandwiches were the No. 1 main dish served at home last year, according to NPD research.

Decisions on away-from-home meals are similarly convenience-driven. Nearly 60% of consumers say that they base dining decisions on convenience at least some of the time; about 27% say they do so most of the time, according to New American Diner Study data.

What’s the Rush?

Rush hours start earlier and finish later than they did a decade ago, according to a study by the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board. The biggest gain in commuter traffic has come between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. McDonald’s and other brands that cater to grab-and-go breakfast eaters are opening stores earlier for commuters as well as keeping them open later for snackers. Mealtime is whenever anyone can find time, and the distinction between meals and snacks is blurring.

Consumers are option-obese and time-starved. Most say they never have enough time to do all that they need to do in a day.

Where does the time go? Work eats much of it. Every business is seeking ways to do more with lower headcounts, with asking employees to work longer hours among those ways. That strategy is effective: The International Labor Organization reports that the average U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, tops among industrialized nations.

But consumers do not feel time-wealthy. Doing just one thing—such as sitting down in a restaurant for a meal—is getting harder to do. As a result, less than half (47%) of restaurant meals are consumed in restaurants, according to R&I’s 2006 Tastes of America Study. Drive-thru pickups account for about 25%, carryout meals for 19% and delivery for roughly 8%.

And when consumers actually sit and eat in a restaurant, what is the increasingly popular choice? Fast-casual concepts, of course.

Give Me a Lunch Break

Time may be slipping away more alarmingly at lunch than at any other time of the day.

• According to research reported in USA Today, the average American worker took 31 minutes for a lunch break in 2005, compared with 36 minutes in 1996. Those five minutes of personal time likely are gone for good: A 2006 study conducted by Culver, City, Calif.-based Impulse Research for KFC finds that more than 50% of consumers take 30 minutes or less for lunch.
• And for many of those who do eat lunch, the scenery often doesn’t change: 58% of adults say they eat lunch at their desks while continuing to work, according to the Impulse study.
• Many of those who manage to get away from their desks don’t get too far: 10% of consumers who buy lunch say they always or often do so at a dining facility where they work, according to R&I’s New American Diner Study. Nine percent always or often have food delivered to their workplace, and 23% use a drive-thru window to pick up food they eat in the car or at work.

This Is No Vacation

• On average, U.S. workers receive 14 vacation days each year. The average is 36 in France, 30 in Spain, and 24 in Great Britain.
• More than one-third (35%) of employed U.S. adults do not take all the vacation days they have, giving back three of the 14 vacation days earned. The difficulty of scheduling vacation time in advance is the most common reason given for not using break time.
• Nearly one in five American workers has cancelled or postponed vacation plans because of work.
• Men are more likely than women to regularly work more than 40 hours a week (51% of men and 30% of women). However, men are more likely to take a two-week vacation (17% of men and 11% of women).
• One-third of employed adults (33%) say they often have trouble coping with stress from work during vacation time.