Limited Edition and Seasonal Food

Author: Dr. Nicole Olynk Widmar, Interim Department Head and Professor, Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics and Dr. Valerie Kilders, Assistant Professor, Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics with special thanks to the #Data research team of Michael Smith, Zachary Neuhofer, Sachina Kida, and Austin Berenda.

‘Tis the season to be overindulgent, it seems – and it’s not just food that we’re indulging in. We used social and online media data to explore the buzz around holiday shopping during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Then, last week, we looked at Google Search data about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and shopping overall. But reliably, we always come back to food in our conversation – something the data visibly seems to support, particularly when it comes to seasonal or limited edition food items different chains like to grace us with.

I’m not sure if we’ve just been incredibly well-conditioned or if we all just really, really feel the need to search out pumpkin spice in October each year due to deeply seated biological drives. We’re constantly claiming that we (consumers) are heterogenous with varying tastes and preferences; it’s true, after all, that we, people, have heterogeneous tastes and preferences.  But, we get awfully homogenous, it seems, when we’re ALL seemingly kicking off peppermint mocha season on practically the same day every year!

We’re back working with our little bar on the screen that knows our deepest, darkest, and sometimes weirdest, secrets: The Google Search Bar and its resulting Google Search data. Knowing what people are looking/searching for and talking about can be helpful in understanding ever-evolving consumer demands. In this case, it can help us understand consumers’ timeline in following their inherent desire to add some seasonal flavors and colors to their drink or add fast-food cult-classics to their diet.

We’ll remind you that Google Search data is presented as ‘interest over time.’ Specifically, “Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.”

We looked at Google Web search data for pumpkin spice, peppermint mocha, shamrock shake, and the McRib. Admittedly, these are three intentionally seasonal items, plus the McRib. The McRib is limited edition, but not seasonal per say. The official wording is, “But its availability is limited—we’ll make sure to let you know when the McRib is back.” Yet, it seems to return each year in November, and so does interest in searching for it, as evidenced by Google search activity.

We are incredibly consistent in our quests for seasonal (and McRib) food items. We are even consistent in when popularity spikes within a seasonal item’s season. When it comes to the pumpkin spice of the fall, our interest spikes early on and then undergoes a graduate decline that takes weeks to dissipate and remains persistent into peppermint mocha season. Interest in peppermint mochas also comes out of the gate strong to peak early on, before then declining for several weeks into the New Year. Shamrock shakes are a bit different; they’re inconsistent over time, but the persistent trend since 2020 differs from the other seasonal items in that it takes time for interest to grow, and peak-interest comes quite late in the season (which doesn’t last long)!

It’s December, a time for holiday cheer and shopping. More specifically, it’s December 12, which for five years in a row marks the precise time that interest in the peppermint mocha, as measured by Google web search data, is on the decline from its recent peak. That’s not just a flippant remark; we (people) are so unbelievably consistent in our interest of the peppermint mocha that we felt the need to bring forward the raw data. We present peppermint mocha interest in 2021, which peaks the week of November 7 and then heads downward. December 12 is highlighted for ease; interest was 53. Not convinced? Let’s look at 2022. Interest peaks the week of November 13 and then declines. Week of Dec 11, interest came in at 58.

We’re embarrassingly consistent. I mean, are we really that predictable? Short answer = yes. We took a close look into the nuances of 2022 and 2023, but there are none. While preferences are heterogeneous amongst individual consumers, it turns out we, as a nation, are remarkably conditioned for seasonal fast-food items. Or there’s an instinctive, biological craving for the shamrock shake and peppermint mocha at the exact same times each year, following the same pattern of interest. I suppose that could be true (although it’s not).

ConsumerCorner.2023.Letter.31