Food and beverage market research: free data first, then call buyers

Food and beverage market research for a new product should start with free government data, add paid scan data only when a retailer will expect it, and spend most of its effort on calls with the people who decide whether a product reaches a shelf. That means retail buyers, category managers, distributors, brokers and co-packers. Shoppers matter too, but a shopper who loves your product cannot put it in a store.

Here is a made-up example used throughout. Dana makes a chili crisp with Sichuan peppercorns and sells about 40 jars a week at two farmers markets. She wants to know whether to pitch regional grocery chains next year, and at what price. (The farmers market regulars are enthusiastic, though several of them are her cousins.)

1. Use free government data to frame the market, then stop

Public data tells you how big the room is. It will not tell you how many people want chili crisp. Spend an afternoon on it, not a month.

The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) reports that total US food spending reached $2.51 trillion in 2025, and that consumers spent 9.7 percent of disposable income on food: 4.8 percent at home and 4.9 percent away from home. Its Food Expenditure Series breaks spending down by outlet type (grocery stores, restaurants), with annual state totals and monthly national estimates for food at home and away from home. If your product sells through both grocery and food service, this is where you see how the two channels move.

Three more free sources earn a bookmark:

• ERS Food Price Outlook. Monthly forecasts of food price changes up to 18 months ahead, for consumer and producer prices. Useful when ingredient costs could move your margin before launch.
• BLS average prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes about 70 food average prices each month, such as eggs per dozen and white bread per pound, nationally and, where the sample allows, for four regions. Good for anchoring commodity ingredients, useless for a specialty sauce.
• Census County Business Patterns. Annual counts of establishments, employment and payroll by industry. Filter for food manufacturing to get a rough count of food plants in your county or state, which tells you where to start looking for co-packers. For local demand around a storefront, restaurant market research covers the Census tools in more detail.

Short version: use public data to describe the market in one paragraph of a pitch, then move on. None of it measures your category on a grocery shelf.

2. Buy scan data when a buyer will ask for it, not before

Scan data is sales recorded at retail checkouts, rolled up by product barcode. It shows how much a category sells, which brands are growing, average prices and how many stores carry each item. Buyers and category managers use it to decide what stays on the shelf, so a brand that shows up with the same numbers speaks their language.

Three companies that sell it to food and beverage brands:

None of the three lists a price for these products on the pages above, so ask each for a quote tied to the categories and retailers you need. Ask which stores the data covers as well, because no vendor sees every register.

Pay for it when you are preparing for a specific retailer's category review (the scheduled meeting where a buyer decides which products to add and drop) and need category numbers to make your case. Before then, the free Byzzer account and a few industry calls usually tell you enough. If your product leans on natural or organic claims, start with SPINS, since its pitch is built around those channels and attributes.

For Dana, scan data could show whether chili crisp is growing in conventional grocery or only in specialty stores. That is worth knowing before she prints a sell sheet. It is not worth a large contract while she still sells out of a folding table.

3. Call the people who decide whether it reaches the shelf

The most useful market research for a food business is a set of 30-minute calls with people inside the supply chain. Each sees a different part of the decision, and each can tell you in one call what a survey of 500 shoppers cannot.

Ask buyers and distributors about up-front costs to get on the shelf. The Federal Trade Commission defines slotting allowances as one-time payments a supplier makes to a retailer as a condition for initial placement of a product, and its 2003 study found they were less frequent and lower for products delivered straight to stores than for products that went through retailer warehouses. The study is old and covered five categories, so use it as a reason to ask about current fees.

Five to eight calls across these four roles is a sensible first round. Talk to people who have worked in your category, or a close one. A frozen dessert buyer and a condiment buyer work under different rules (freezer space being, among other things, very cold and very scarce).

4. Check the concept and the price with the trade first

Show buyers and brokers the same one-page sell sheet a retailer would see: product, claims, size, suggested shelf price and why a shopper would pick it over what is already there. Ask what they would change before they would take a meeting. Concept testing covers how to compare versions once you have them.

Then work the price backward from the shelf. Ask a buyer what price the category set tends to run at for your size, ask a distributor and a broker what margins and fees they expect on top of your price, and ask a co-packer for unit cost at your likely first run. If the numbers only work at a shelf price buyers say the set will not support, you learned that for the cost of a few calls instead of a production run.

In the made-up example, Dana hears from a buyer that the chili crisps in her target chain cluster around one price point, and from a co-packer that her first run would need to be several times her current weekly volume. That second fact changes her plan more than any market size chart.

5. Talk to shoppers last, about what they already bought

Once the trade says the product can work, interview shoppers about the last condiment or snack they added to their routine. Consumer research covers recruiting and questions for this step, and researching willingness to pay covers testing price with buyers who might actually pay it.

Do it in this order because the trade answers decide which shopper questions matter. There is no point refining a label claim a buyer has already said the category is drowning in.

Your next step

List the four roles above and write one question for each that would change your launch plan. Then book a call with someone in each role who has worked in your category.

Instant Expert can find people matching a description such as "former grocery buyers who managed the condiments and sauces category at a regional chain." You set the amount each person receives for a call (Instant Expert's fee is added on top), it sends your invitations and you pay only if someone books. Start with the directory pages for grocery category management experts, food co-packing experts and food and beverage consultants.