Italy is a country that is increasingly looking towards a low budget life
Veterans from a difficult and at times dramatic year – from the new scenario of Israeli-Palestinian warat climate disasters until the actual loss of purchasing power – Italians face with firm imperturbability the brink of a 2024 in which between uncertain electoral cyclesnew geopolitical tensions and the slowdown of global economiesthere will still be many opportunities that could change the destinies of the world.
In the global context, according to the Italian managers interviewed by the Coop Research Office in December, even more than the economy the greatest element of instability in the global scenario in the next 12 months they will be precisely the potential new conflicts; 45% of the sample fears them compared to 23% worried about extreme climate phenomena and 22% alarmed byperformance of the international economy. And among the elements of greatest concern are the results of the many electoral rounds, starting with the American one (this is what 44% of the sample declared). Scenario volatility and multiple potential crises which mean that the future can only be expressed in the plural, generating an overlap of many possible worlds. Sudden, unpredictable, perhaps even dystopian. In this context, the Olympic calm of our compatriots can only be surprising.
The photograph of Italians taken by the Office's surveys Studies Coop conducted in December gives us the image of a Country on pausenestled in one's present, where anger or desperation do not dwell, but where positive moods persist, in line with the last year. Italians find comfort in the intimate dimension of their private sphere, family and closest loved ones and instead seem to have had to give up the hope of being able to build a better future.
Lto hope (a word often associated in previous surveys with the coming year) it is cited by just over a fifth of Italians (22%); they were a quarter a year ago (26%) but almost 4 in 10 (37%) on the threshold of post-pandemic 2022 (December 2021 survey). And in the same way, the forecast of a concrete change which goes from 15% in 2022 to 13% in 2023 and stops at 12% in 2024 is no longer expected. Among the words that most tend to connote the year that has just begun. there is room for serenity (33%) and acceptance (28%) A positive propensity that makes its way, however, not without sacrifices.
Low budget life without plans
By dint of postponements and renunciations, in fact, Italians settle for a life made up of small things, forced to advance through subtractions rather than additions and the future of the country contracts in a temporal dynamic dominated by the present. It is above all the big projects and life-changing opportunities that pay the price. Almost one in 3 citizens would like to buy a house (29%), or would like to change country (28%), but already knows that they will not do so. Likewise, 30% of employed people would like to change jobs, but know that it will not be possible to do so. What is especially striking is that among young people aged 20-40, half (51%) say they are not at all interested in becoming a parent, while a further 28% would like a child, but already foresee that it will not be possible.
Perhaps the bitterest sign of the renounces the future that seems to characterize Italian society in recent years. In this context in which many variables for improving one's life are unavailable, attention can only be placed on caring for loved ones, for oneself and for others. Among the only two expenditure items in which the number of Italians who expect an increase for 2024 exceeds those who expect a decrease are expenses for health and well-being (increasing for 24% of the sample) and those for domestic food consumption (16%). 26% of those interviewed say they want to spend more on prevention and checks, 23% on routine analyses. 23% put the usual diet among their good resolutions for 2024, but 25% think about new eating habits and 17% think about spa, meditation and relaxation techniques.
Why the real keystone of the year that has just begun is a low budget life, lived day by day, perhaps the only one that the majority of Italians can afford. Concerned as they are by the erosion of their savings with which they have cushioned the impact of the inflation of the last 20 months and aware that it will take time for their salaries to increase. So free time puts cinemas, theatres, concerts and museums on standby (all with costs), in favor of nature walks, reading, some sports and a bit of music (with significantly lower costs). Small exception, at least on paper, is the desire for a holiday. After many had left their suitcases in the attic in 2023, some due to budget problems, some due to climatic contingencies, among the resolutions for 2024, there is an increase in those who think of returning to travel in Italy (68% with 8 percentage points more than in 2023 ), or to travel abroad (42% with 7 percentage points more than last year).
The (sober) maintenance of food spending
If the forecasts of food supply chain managers also hypothesize a new small contraction in food purchases in large-scale retail trade for 2024 (-0.5% in volume), Italians' spending intentions on domestic food consumption instead seem to improve; the percentage of those intending to increase the quantities consumed (16%) exceeds that of those intending to reduce consumption (11%) with a difference of 5 percentage points (the same difference was -1 percentage point in the August 2023 survey). Food remains central to consumption choices, but even at the table, spending money goes hand in hand with sobriety.
Indeed, almost a third of Italians (31%) say they will dedicate more time to preparing food at home (the simplest way to combine quality and savings) and in any case the main purchase drivers are the quality-price ratio in first place (at least for 66% of Italians), convenience and savings (50%) and health and well-being (41%).
Among the adjectives chosen to define the food of 2024, the most popular is healthy (45%), then inexpensive (44%), followed by sustainable (27%) and simple/authentic and essential (26 and 25%). Because in addition to being convenient, the 2024 table must remain healthy and therefore traditional and essential (27%). Fruit and vegetables are also back in the shopping cart, which in the summer seemed to have been at the center of great sacrifices by Italians. In the Top 5 of products on the increase in 2024, fruit and vegetables appear in first place and then immediately after fish (also a difficult thing to give up in recent years). Among the products of which Italians expect to be able to reduce consumption, sweets stand out (41% of the sample will reduce them), red meats (34%), cured meats and cold cuts (37%) and spirits (33%) .
Large-scale retail trade and macroeconomic forecasts
On the macroeconomic front, if the recession now appears to have been averted, the 2024 forecasts take us back to an Italy of zero point. According to the managers interviewed by the Coop Research Office, the GDP growth estimated at 0.5% for the next 12 months still makes us slower than Europe, and 83% of the same sample is convinced that the pockets of poverty and phenomena of social and economic vulnerability in our country are destined to increase.
In front of one food inflation still sustained (for managers estimated at 3% on average for the year), therefore in an attempt to defend their consumption and their quality, Italians seem to have definitively converted to MDD (Distributor's brand) which also in 2024 it promises to record excellent performances; 82% of Italian managers expect an increase in the quantity purchased, while industrial brands are in first place among the decreasing purchasing choices. Not only the smaller ones and those of follower producers (down respectively for 51% and 48% of those interviewed), not even the leading brands are an exception, so much so that a good 36% imagine giving up purchasing them.
But if 2023 has taught us families how to save money at the usual point of sale, it is also true that the strong reduction in available resources resulting from inflation has forced many Italians to increasingly turn to the discount channel. A trend that seems to continue to grow in 2024 and places this format at the top of the growth chart sales over the next 12 months, both in consumer and food manager forecasts. In the face of these trends, only the efficiency-innovation combination seems to be the main path for the modern distribution of the future.
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