College Students Habits : This PDF has a lot of information overall on college students’ eating and drinking habits, but also go into specifics on purchasing food. Even though there is a lot that does not directly tie into grocery shopping, some habits are compared to every aspect of college students lives. For example a large part of the text talks about buying food at the university’s food mart; it can be inferred though that this habit would also apply to when a student goes to an actual grocery store.
Some key findings were:
- Diet vs. Convenience conscious
- Cooking factors: time, appliances, money (cheaper than going out)
- Comparing prices and coupons
- Branding
- Popular items: water, milk, soda, pasta, prepackaged/ready-to-eat, sandwiches/wraps
- Nutrition Factors: sugar content, calories, fat
- Organic food is not of much interest
- What students consider healthy > cost > taste
- Location of store from living place is key in the amount purchased at once
- Most only consider healthy alternatives if it is affordable
http://www.statista.com/topics/1779/us-millennials-grocery-shopping-behavior/
This web page shows some basic data for average visits to the grocery store and spending for millennials. This demographic includes all people who were teenagers during the turn of the millennium. College students are a part of this demographic, but others who are not currently in college are included in this were also included so the data doesn’t perfectly reflect habits of college students specifically. There is limited information on the internet about grocery shopping habits of strictly college students, but the statistics on this site serve as a decent estimate.
