Salads have overtaken soup to become Britain’s second most popular lunchbox choice.
Salad featured in a whopping 155.1 million lunchboxes in the past year, an increase of 28.1% on the year before.
That put it ahead of soup, which featured in 101.2 million lunchboxes, according to exclusive Kantar data compiled for The Grocer. Soup saw a 4.2% decline in occasions for the 52-week period ending 24 February 2019.
Sandwiches remain by far the most popular lunch choice overall, present in 1.1 billion lunchboxes in the past year.
Kantar said last year’s heatwave played a role in the sharp rise of salads. However, it also pointed to a longer-term trend.
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“The popularity of salad as a packed lunch has been on the rise for a number of years, primarily thanks to its appeal as a low fat, salt and sugar option in a world where health is increasingly important,” said Grenville Wall, consumer insight director at Kantar.
“Women under 45 are the most significant demographic behind the shift,” he added. “This group is the largest consumer of both soup and salad, and the cohort that tends to be most interested in health.”
Dieter Lloyd, spokesman for the British Leafy Salads Association, also said the data showed a “continuation of a trend” rather than a weather-driven spike. “Over the past two to three years we have seen sales of salads increase as shoppers opt for lighter, healthier choices,” he said.
The emergence of “more interesting salads” had also boosted their popularity, he added.
Kantar data shows calorie control was a motivating factor in 76.2 million lunchboxes over the past year, up 32.4%. Meanwhile, wanting a healthier meal inspired 35.2 million lunch choices, up 23.8%.
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