If you get five couples together in the same room and ask each person who is the primary grocery shopper for their household, chances are you will get 10 different responses. That’s because more and more U.S. households are changing grocery shopping habits due to shifting household roles, according to the 2016 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report released by the Food Marketing Institute, Arlington, Va.

For the last four decades, FMI has traced where consumers shop, how they shop and what issues are most important to them as consumers. This year, FMI worked with the Hartman Group, Bellevue, Wash., to supplement its U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends research perspective with a cultural lens, interviewing Americans in their homes and while shopping, and drawing upon ethnographic research into U.S. food consumption and consumers.

This year's study further explores the deep shift in shopping and important meal time distinctions, and provides updates about long- and short-term trends, including status check on current trends influencing shoppers and shopping, the growth in shared shopping and co-shopping to satisfy personal desires and household needs and updates to shopper values and trends such as the convergence of personal health and community wellness ideals.

Key takeaways from the report include:

·         85% of all adults report that they have at least half the household responsibility for grocery shopping.

·         24% of all grocery shoppers are self-shoppers (either a single-parent household or a multi-adult household with only one grocery shopper).

·         Sole shoppers make up 14% of single-parent households, while 4% consist of a multi-adult household with only one grocery shopper.

·         22% of all grocery shoppers are shared-shoppers with a 50/50 split in grocery shopping responsibility.