The Cookie Decision

View Helio survey of Male Grocery Shoppers  |  Helio Explained

Planning one meal can be difficult, let alone an entire week of family meals. I’m not our primary grocery shopper, so I often overlook the challenges of keeping the pantry stocked with food, especially with three growing kids. I love my wife. Over our 16 years of marriage training, I’ve become a mercenary when it comes to buying food. It’s a job that needs to get done; in and out of the grocery store as fast as I can with lightning speed. I do worry though, in the absence of a set grocery list, did I buy the right thing?

I struggle with my purchase decisions. Do I buy the cheaper generic store brand or the brand name? I wanted to learn from my fellow male grocery shopping panelists, how do they make these buying decisions? Do they have the same struggles? It turns out that 73% of our male shoppers audience buy both generic and brand names. Over half of the men do the grocery shopping for the family, and surprisingly, another half confirmed that they also enjoy the task! I’ve heard of these strange people. I'll admit I don’t like the shopping part, however, I do indulge in people watching.

It’s a tough pill to swallow to purchase brand name products that can have a 50% markup. In some cases it’s worth the quality upgrade. This panelist highlights my specific challenge, “The main reason would be price and package design.” I do unfortunately judge food items by their packaging. Generic foods to avoid? This panelist has sound advice,“fish and canned food.” I agree.

As a kid growing up in Minnesota, we often purchased generic brands from Cub Foods. Back then, the generic packaging was purely white and black. If we had friends over to our house, there was no hiding that we had the cheap stuff. Never bothered me though. Today, it’s more difficult to decipher which item is the generic brand, as the stores have created colorful packaging, and sometimes they even repackage the same name brand. Since my role is the “we forgot this” guy on the way home from work, I’m often in a rush to figure out which brands to grab. 

I understand my role is limited in responsibilities, but I take the job seriously. It’s a game of logistics organizing the grocery list on the fly. Sometimes it’s a game of memory listening to requests over the phone. “We need thin spaghetti. Also, find this new sauce brand. Get beef.” Other times it’s the “one more thing” text request in the checkout line, or worse, the ill-timed text walking to the car. It can be a thankless role because if I mess up, I blow the meal. I’m the 9th inning closer whose only job is not to lose the game. Dinner must be served!

I was surprised that only 15% of men have a role like mine. This similar panelist made me laugh though, “I feel that it's a kind of hobby that I have.” Some of my trips can feel that way, which aligns with many of my male panelists who also visit the grocery store every few days. Similar to other men, we are most likely to only purchase 6-10 items per trip. Very few men buy over 25 items at a time.

Men had clear feelings about the Creme Between cookies, varying from negative, “This looks like a cheap Oreo version. I do not like it,” to those who judged the packaging, “disgusting” and “I don’t like milk, so i don't like it.” There were some men willing to be swayed by the dollar, “looks like an Oreo, better be cheaper.” My favorite response? This gentleman was not going to be swayed by anything other than his waistline, “only on the weekend.” 

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DesignFail is a light hearted series where I share my love for our Helio product. I’m curious about the world and love figuring out how I fit into it’s chaos. I’ve helped 1000s of companies design products and services to solve these amazing people problems. Text me at 650.533.0469.