Consumers and cookware: what’s changing?

The entire world is nowadays going through a highly delicate and difficult situation which is modifying our daily day living habits, and it will probably do also for the future.  This tough period will undoubtedly transform once again also the consumers behavior and this may impact the cookware industry, too. How? We do not have the answers yet, but surely we will experience changes. We will definitely study closely the phenomena and share with you all the new trends detected. For now, in this article we highlight some of the most recent insights collected from the cookware market which we believe are still interesting and will remain actual.

1. the progress of the new generation of consumers, the Millennials, who are increasingly demanding and informed;
2. the new perception of cookware products by end users, who are constantly searching for products with increasingly distinctive characteristics;
3. the trend toward products with shorter life cycles.

Millennials and cookware, trends and characteristics

The young people of today are more familiar with cooking than their peers were in the 1990s. This is what the market surveys show and this is easy to understand if you look into their world. Social media is the reference point for Millennials and food influencers have become icons. There are also many cooking shows on TV which attract niche audiences, but which nevertheless are extremely influential and numerous.

Riding a wave of emulation, Millennials began cooking and, as a result, they became interested in cookware, especially with a view toward sharing on social media. Aside from being functional, kitchen utensils should be trendy, fashionable and aesthetically pleasing.

Today’s young people pay more attention to the aesthetic side of products, especially if you consider the number of amateur videos posted on social networks every day. For young people, sharing has almost become the main focus of cookware, both on social media and in real life, in which the mise en place, the combination of tableware, dishes and utensils, plays an increasing role.

This is also the reason why manufacturers need to create iconic and unique designs for each part of their utensils, in order to give their products increasingly distinctive characteristics.

Handles play a key role in this area. Have you ever considered that the handle is the only part of the utensil you hold while cooking? The handle you hold when deciding which pot to buy can give you positive or negative feelings about the aesthetics and features of the pot, which affect your final choice.

Product life cycles: what has changed

Think about how your grandmother or your mother used their utensils. Think about how many years you saw the same pots and pans and the same accessories in their kitchen. Over time, the average life of cookware has been reduced and this trend is not purely a result of research into functionality of these products.

Some analysts attribute this trend to an overall downward trend in quality, however, a more realistic reason is the different needs of new consumers.

Using the same kitchen utensil for years and years, which has become worn out over time, causes the utensil to lose its appeal and leads to its replacement. It’s not true that all cookware is replaced at the end of its useful life, some cookware has gone out of fashion, and is replaced by something trendy and new.