Out of home catering is experiencing significant growth. This development may be caused as much by mobility and by the increasing number of people living solo, for whom traditional meals have lost their importance, as by new work and leisure schedules and behaviour patterns. A new European regulation published in 2007 will accentuate some emerging consumer trends: the measure authorises free formats for all pre-packaged products, and this should widen the choice available to consumers. Member States who so wish will be able to progressively do away with existing rules regarding national formats in five sectors: milk, butter, dry pasta, coffee (up to October 2012) and white sugar (up to October 2013).
Individual, family-size, large-format and other volumes will multiply and fill the shelves, excepting wines and spirits, subject for their part to compulsory formats. Habits, tastes, hobbies, as well as demographic and sociological changes all have an impact on new consumer expectations. Those combined phenomena have led industrialists to review the assortments of certain products. With the diminution of lunch breaks by one hour over 20 years, sandwich sales, fast foods as well as small gourmet-style meals have become all the rage.
