Sopexa is the only international marketing agency that focuses entirely on the food and beverage community making their relationship with agriculture essential. Pauline Oudin, managing director, conducted the first ever study on the global foodie. She shared her findings during the U.S. Soy Global Trade Exchange and highlighted key elements to engaging the modern foodie around the world.

The multi-country foodie study focused on the preferences, behaviors of Millennials and younger food consumers in China, Japan, U.S. Germany, U.K. and France. They defined a foodie as someone who considers food a key hobby and who is socially active in discussing those subjects.

“The most interesting thing was the comparison of the foodie across the six major countries. We saw many differences,” said Oudin. “For example, in the U.S. they are older than we expected. They are older in Japan as well, which we could have expected. However, significantly younger in France.”

Oudin said they were also very surprised in the difference between social media use. Naturally, we assumed the foodie would be connected online and socially active. But they use different kinds of social media in different markets. “In the U.S. the foodie is into showing off. They want to be creative with food and get praise for that creativity. They show off their food rather than discussing issues or concerns. You will have more forum discussions in China, where it is more community based. As a marketer, you will want to target those different audiences with very different marketing approaches.”

Surprisingly, the study showed that U.S. foodies don’t eat out as often as we might have assumed. In fact, it reported that many only ate out two to three times a month. Oudin said one of the reasons for this is price sensitivity linked to quality. The modern foodie would rather have better less often then good frequently.

I honestly could have talked to Pauline for hours on this issue. But who would want to listen to all of that? However, you can catch my complete interview with Oudin where she expands on what type of information are foodies seeking, what sources are they trusting, where are they shopping, what do they want to see on the label and finally, where does she see this foodie trend going in the future.

Listen here: Interview with Pauline Oudin, Sopexa

View and download photos from the event here: 2016 US Soy Global Trade Exchange Photos