Wacky Facts
* Interesting Facts
* How do you eat yours? - top 5 serving suggestions
* Sausage psychology
* Sausage sophistication
* Sausage nation
* Records and quantities
* Sausages through the centuries
* Links
- Consumers have continued to trade up in the sausage market;
- volume sales have risen +11% to an estimated 182,610 tonnes between 2000 and 2006.
- Value sales have also risen +23% to £517m between August 2000 and August 2006.
- The market has fared well in current value terms, rising +5% in the latest year alone to £517 million, with a +1.8% rise in price per kg.
- Mintel forecasts that the market for fresh and frozen sausages will increase by 29% at current prices, to attain a market value of £682 million by 2010 *******.
- A recent study**delved deep into Britain’s sausage consumption habits to discover some pretty delicious data:
- Sausages storm ahead as the number 1 'in-home meal' in the UK ... ahead of the cheese or ham sandwich. Sausages make up 1720 meal occasions (inc. sandwiches sausages, sausage stews/casserole, pork & herb sausages, low-fat pork sausages, pork & beef sausages, beef sausage and other sausages)
- Nearly half of all consumers have bought fresh pre-packed sausages, while over a quarter are buyers of frozen sausages or fresh loose products from butchers’ counters *******.
- The big questions is: Why buy sausages?
- The most popular answer given:
- Because I’ve run out at home!!
- So
clearly the British don’t like to be without sausages in the house.
- 88% of households have bought sausages in the last year. The average GB household spends on average £23.79 on 8.4kg of sausages a year.
- Sausage consumer … fastest growth is amongst men (aged 35-44 years) +8.9%.
- Searching for Sausages on Google reveals over 11.2 million web pages about sausages.
- The convenience of sausages entices 6.8% of people but 13.4% succumb simply because they fancy a
change. 8.4% consider them a treat. But the largest number, nearly 30% eat them simply because sausages are their favourite meal.
- Sausages are loved at any time of the day. But of GB households, 1.9% eat sausages for a snack, 15.4
% for tea, 15.4% for breakfast, 15.6% for lunch and dinner is the winner with 39.5%. ***
- Saturday is the favourite day for eating sausages. Sunday comes in second, and Monday comes in a
close third. ***
- Sausages are the single most important food served at barbeques featuring in 49% of barbeque
occasions ahead of beef burgers with 38% and poultry with 37%. *****
HOW DO YOU EAT YOURS? The top 5 complementary foods
- Savour it in a sausage sandwich (bread)
- Enjoy with boiled/mashed potatoes
- Love it with Baked Beans
- Chomp it with chips
- Vibrant with fresh tomatoes
- Delving into the mind of a sausage lover reveals that the combination of a hard exterior and soft interior
and the moreish quality and succulent aftertaste makes the sausage irresistible
- While the convenient ease of cooking and the range of flavours from the traditional to the ethic mean that
Britons just can’t get enough.
- Most people will grow up eating the one type of sausage that their parents happen to buy. However,
marriage is a turning point when both people bring their own ideas about sausages. This leads to the joy of joint experimentation and discovery! ****
- Increasingly own-label ranges are pulling consumers’ emotional levers, tapping into their lifestyles.
Healthy Eating ranges, eg Tesco Healthy Living, Marks & Spencer Count on Us, now boast sausages which are lower in fat, as well as being salt, sugar and calorie controlled; in addition, some retailers now stock organic sausage ranges designed to appeal to the health conscious/ethical consumer.
- The shift away from breakfast occasions towards main meals and sandwich occasions has shaped much of the development in the last five years. In order to compete more effectively with other meal centres sausages have gained sophistication and the sausage category as a whole has seen a notable shift towards more premium positioning.
- The premium category has seen the highest level of development with better quality meat used, different textures and a wider range of recipes and ingredients
- At 56% market share, standard sausages account for the biggest share of value sales; however, premium sausages have gained share (+41.7% between 20thAugust 2000 and 13th August 2006) now at 35% share of the sausage market. *******
- Fresh sausages account for over 70% of value sales of total sausages, fresh grew +8.5% in the latest year. Frozen sausages saw a drop in value sales -9.6%, loose sausages grew value sales by +2% now with share of 15.6%, a bigger value share than frozen at 14.1%.
- Much of the activity has been in the retailer own brand sector, with premium labels such as Taste the Difference and Finest being expanded with new traditional and ethnic recipes and ingredients. Premium sausages have also gained from a perception that they are healthier than standard, with higher meat content and increased customer confidence as a result.
- The propensity to believe that it is worth paying extra for quality goods is notably higher among the growing body of affluent AB consumers.
- Most activity has been at the added value end of the market, in line with spending trends in the sector. Suppliers have been keen to capitalise on consumer willingness to pay more for convenience or quality.
- The success of sausages as a restaurant food has led to demand as a centrepiece as well as an ingredient in meals.
- There is an increase in trendy restaurants, pubs and cafés devoted to the Sausage.
- Today, British sausages even have their own fan club, the British Sausage Appreciation Society, which has over 7,000 members.
- British Sausage week will be happening for the 9th year between 30th October and 5th November 2006 as fans up and down the country celebrate sausages.
- Sausages really are the nations’ favourite food, with celebrity fans including Prince Charles, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Roger Moore, Keith Floyd, Des O’Connor and Rachel Stevens whose favourite comfort food is a sausage sandwich. It even makes it on to celebrity wedding breakfasts with Kate Winslet and now Jordan and Peter Andre opting for Bangers and Mash.
- There are more than 470 recipes and flavours for sausages in Britain. If you take into account all the different variations from butchers across the country you could eat a different British sausage every day for ten years.
- Pork based sausages are still the most popular, consumers find diversity among the differing recipes available.
- Women are the major buyers across all chilled categories of sausages. Men are better represented in the frozen sausages category. They may be purchasing for standby occasions as these sausages have a long at home storage life and can be cooked from frozen therefore offer a convenient eating option.
- Butchers across the UK regularly compete in sausage competitions. These include the Great Yorkshire Pie, Sausage and Black Pudding competition, held every year in November, The Birmingham and District Butcher’s Association National Product Competition at the County Showground, Stafford (November) and The British Pig Association’s Smithfield Sausage Competition (December).
HOT STUFF
- Sausages are considered a basic barbecue food; together with burgers, they are almost the staples of the occasion with other products added to this basic product.
- A perception of longer hotter summers has contributed towards entrenching the barbecue habit as a feature of the UK summertime. Since 2000 there has been a continual upward drift in barbecue ownership with over a third of households owning equipment by 2004 *******.
- Barbecues are moving up market and have been described by marinade supplier Nando’s as the ‘new dinner party’.
- The market received a considerable boost from the long hot summer of 2003 that led to booming sales for barbecue occasions.
- In Great Britain £499 million was spent on sausages in 2004, up from £487 million in 2003.
- The World’s longest sausage was made in October 2000 during British Sausage Week and weighed 15.5 tonnes and was 35 miles long!
- The most expensive sausage in the UK was made from fillet steak with Champagne and truffles and cost £20 each!
- Sausage machines can fill sausages at a rate of 1 ½ miles an hour
- The history of the sausage starts at least 5,000 years ago in Sumeria (modern day Iraq).
- By 900 BC sausages had become the popcorn of the ancient Greek theatre, available from sausage sellers in the aisles.
- In 320 AD the Roman Emperor Constantinus I and the Catholic Church banned sausage eating because of links to pagan festivals! This led to sausages going underground until the ban was lifted.
- The sausage was in trouble again nine hundred years ago. Emperor Leo V declared that sausage makers would be ‘severely scourged, smoothly shaved and banished from our realm forever’. It is not known what sausage sellers had done to cause such offence.
- It was in the reign of Charles I that sausages were divided into links for the first time.
- Apparently legendary highwayman, Dick Turpin, was known to moonlight as a butcher making sausages from the finest meats hunted in Epping Forest.
- Sausages were nicknamed bangers during the Second World War because when they were fried they tended to explode with a bang!
- Henry V stated: ‘War without fire is as worthless as sausages without mustard’.
- A number of sausage manufacturers hold a royal warrant and one sausage manufacturer in particular, holds of a royal warrant granted by Her Majesty the Queen, but has been a supplier firstly to King George V and latterly to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, so royal patronage has become part of the company’s heritage.*****
* Source: TNS data MLC Food Services Estimates 2004
** Source: TNS Worldpanel: 52we data 13 Aug 2006 and 14 Aug 2005
*** Source: TNS Usage: 12 months to May 2006
**** Source: Understanding the Sausage Experience / MLC, The Marketing Clinic 2005
***** Source: www.musks.com
****** Source: TNS Family Food Panel Complete
******* Source: Mintel – Frozen and Fresh Sausages, Market Intelligence, August 2005
* Interesting Facts
* How do you eat yours? - top 5 serving suggestions
* Sausage psychology
* Sausage sophistication
* Sausage nation
* Records and quantities
* Sausages through the centuries
* Links
- volume sales have risen +11% to an estimated 182,610 tonnes between 2000 and 2006.
- Value sales have also risen +23% to £517m between August 2000 and August 2006.
- The market has fared well in current value terms, rising +5% in the latest year alone to £517 million, with a +1.8% rise in price per kg.
- The most popular answer given:
- Because I’ve run out at home!!
- So
clearly the British don’t like to be without sausages in the house.
change. 8.4% consider them a treat. But the largest number, nearly 30% eat them simply because sausages are their favourite meal.
% for tea, 15.4% for breakfast, 15.6% for lunch and dinner is the winner with 39.5%. ***
close third. ***
occasions ahead of beef burgers with 38% and poultry with 37%. *****
and the moreish quality and succulent aftertaste makes the sausage irresistible
Britons just can’t get enough.
marriage is a turning point when both people bring their own ideas about sausages. This leads to the joy of joint experimentation and discovery! ****
Healthy Eating ranges, eg Tesco Healthy Living, Marks & Spencer Count on Us, now boast sausages which are lower in fat, as well as being salt, sugar and calorie controlled; in addition, some retailers now stock organic sausage ranges designed to appeal to the health conscious/ethical consumer.
HOT STUFF
