Many consumers define 'clean eating' to include processed, packaged foods

While the “clean eating” trend has made the perimeter of the grocery store a shopping hot spot, retailers should not give up on center store. However, they might want to focus on reformulating center-store store brand items to remove ingredients that are unacceptable to clean eaters.

According to “How Consumers Define Clean Eating,” a new report from The NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based information company, 61 percent of primary grocery shoppers feel packaged foods are acceptable when eating clean, and 44 percent of shoppers say some processing is also acceptable.

NPD surveyed more than 5,000 consumers to understand what clean eating means to them and how it impacts their consumption and shopping behaviors. The survey found that, in general, clean eaters emphasize ingredients that are absent in foods or beverages instead of the ingredients those products actually contain. Of most importance to these consumers are foods that do not contain pesticides, chemicals, preservatives and additives. These consumers appear to be adamant about their choices — 80 percent of clean eaters say clean eating is their lifestyle as opposed to a diet or fad, NPD said.

People who are core followers of clean eating currently represent about 5 percent of primary grocery shoppers, skewing female and younger. But clean eating may have more staying power than typical diets since consumers view it as a lifestyle. And some consumers already practice clean eating but might not know they are following some of the clean eating guidelines. In addition, half of clean eaters have been following this lifestyle for over a year, which suggests that such a lifestyle can be sustained and, therefore, can grow in the coming decades, NPD reported.