Assessing Trends in Consumer Price Values of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in the United Kingdom

ASSESSING TRENDS IN CONSUMER PRICE VALUES OF FOOD AND NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
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Table of Contents Table of Figures. 2 Introduction. 3 Background. 3 Aim.. 3 Objectives. 3 Methodology. 4 Data Collection. 4 Data Preparation. 4 Data Analysis. 5 Results. 5 Conclusion. 9 Project Management 10 Project plan. 10 Project Collaboration. 10 Learning reflection. 11 References. 12 Table of Figures Figure 1: Time series Plot of Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages CP Values. 6 Figure 2: Time series Plot of the 4-Quarter Moving Average of CP Values. 7 Figure 3: Comparison of CP Values with the 4-Quarter Moving Average (MA) 7 Figure 4: Time series Plot of the Center Moving Average of CP Values. 8 Figure 5: Comparison of CP Values with the Center Moving Average (CMA) 8 Figure 6: Time series Plot of Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages CP Values with Forecasted Values  9 Assessing Trends in Consumer Price Values of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in the United Kingdom Introduction Background Consumer trends are considered an important part of planning government activities in different parts of the world. In the United Kingdom (UK), various indicators of consumption trends are collected by the government, including spending on food and non-alcoholic beverages (Office for National Statistics, 2023b). With a majority of the population spending on these items daily, it provides an appropriate variable to study and understand spending patterns historically and further enables forecasting (Partington, 2022). Notably, there have been significant changes in the consumption patterns of the UK based on various changes, including economic conditions, health aspects, and changes in lifestyle over the past 30 years (Brien, 2023).             Consequently, this provides an opportunity for researchers to comprehensively analyse such trends in data using techniques such as forecasting analysis when presented with time series data (Silva et al., 2019). The lack of appropriate and adequate knowledge in this area makes it difficult for concerned stakeholders in the country to make informed decisions about aspects of planning, product development, marketing, and distribution that are directly linked with the consumption of these products (Bazzoni et al., 2022). More so, policymakers can also lack an appropriate understanding of the underlying issues surrounding consumer behaviour that can assist in developing appropriate interventions to address possible health concerns and promote sustainability in this sector. As a result, both the public and private sectors can benefit immensely from this research and its findings. Aim             This research aims to assess the consumer trends in the consumption of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom using the available time series data through forecasting analysis. Objectives The main objective of this research is to understand the changing dynamics in consumer spending on food and non-alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom. The specific objectives were:

1. To analyse the historical trends and seasonal behaviour in consumer price values of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom.
2. To forecast future consumption patterns of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom based on historical trends
3. To provide insights and recommendations for stakeholders in the food and non-alcoholic beverage industry based on the findings of the analysis

Methodology Data Collection             This research paper used secondary data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the United Kingdom on Consumer Trends. The data is publicly available on their website and contains information on the Consumer Price Values of various aspects of the economy, including food, health, housing, and entertainment, among others (Office for National Statistics, 2023a). The primary data used in the compilation of the consumer trends dataset was previously collected by the ONS through various surveys such as the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCFS), the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS), and the Family Spending Survey (FSS) (Office for National Statistics, 2023b).             The consumer trends data contains information on the various markets from 1948 to 2022. However, some of the earlier data was incomplete and missed some information in most sections. Consequently, this paper extracted data on the food and non-alcoholic beverages column and focussed on the time period between 1992 and 2022 that had complete data points. Data Preparation             The data preparation involved several activities after retrieving the dataset from the ONS website in Microsoft Excel format. Firstly, there was a need to inspect the data and understand the variables used to determine an appropriate way forward. This included aspects of the data format presented, the scope of the data and its completeness (Mills, 2019). This enabled the selection of forecasting analysis since the data was mainly a time series set and had an appropriate record of several years.             Secondly, the data was cleaned by filtering out and remaining with data in the food and non-alcoholic beverages section and the time period. Data from the last 30 years included the consumption in quarters of each year hence this time period was selected. The pre-processing also involved formatting the data on the time period into date format so that it could be identified as such in Excel (Mills, 2019; Boone et al., 2019). The possibility of missing data and outliers was also assessed during this data preparation process to ensure that there were no data points likely to affect the results of the study. Data Analysis             With the extracted data from the consumer trends dataset being time series, forecasting analysis was chosen as the analysis method. Through this method, it was possible to examine the trends in the consumption of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the UK for the last 30 years. Additionally, it was also possible to assess the changes in the frequency of consumption based on the different quarters of each year. Apart from that, forecasting analysis was done to project future consumption patterns by using exponential smoothing (Athiyarath et al., 2020). This analysis was conducted using the analysis tools available in Microsoft Excel. Results             Through a thorough analysis of the time series plot, the data on food and non-alcoholic beverages shows the changes in Consumer Price (CP) values for each quarter from 1992 through 2022 (in £ million). Overall, the data indicated a clear upward trend showing that there has been a continuous increase in consumer prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages. This is indicated by the difference in the quarterly range of the values with 1992 ranging from £10,770 million (Q1) to £11,857 million (Q4), whereas in 2022, the range is from £29,681 million (Q1) to £34,602 million (Q4). This is a clear indication of the growth of the market for food and non-alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom from 1922 to 2022. More so, there was also an evident sudden increase in consumption values between 2010 and 2015 before the trend stabilized.   Figure 1: Time series Plot of Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages CP Valu...