Mag ABCs: Supermarket magazines are top of the menu with food fanatics

Britain may not be traditionally famous for its fine cuisine, but the latest results for the food magazines would suggest that trend is changing.

With the sector enjoying an impressive 8.3% annual growth, it would appear that the meat and two veg days are long gone and Britain is fast turning into a nation of foodies.

Once again, supermarket magazines topped the tables, with Asda's free title reporting a 7.3% increase year on year and Seven Publishing Group's Sainsbury's Magazine shooting up a mouth-watering 23.5%.

Dorcas Jamieson, client director for Sainsbury's Magazine, believes the success of supermarket titles is down to offering a mix of quality information, either free or at an affordable price.

"Sainsbury's Magazine is only £1.20 and is not just about food – we make sure we reflect the lifestyle elements that you find in Sainsbury's, such as home and fashion."

Also making substantial inroads – albeit from a lower base – was BBC's Easy Cook, up an impressive 71.4%.

Mark Hughes, associate director at Carat, believes Easy Cook's success may propel more entrants into the basic and less aspiring end of the food magazine market.

"In terms of the affluent end, they haven't run out of steam but as a market overall there is a lot of scope for dividing it up into niches," Hughes said.

The BBC's other, more upmarket titles, Good Food and Olive, had mixed results, with the former reporting a 4.2% year-on-year increase and the latter a mere 0.8%, suggesting that the titles may be cannibalising each other's audience.

Nicki Hill, food group publisher at BBC magazines, pointed out that there was no evidence to prove this, but admitted there will always be crossover at one level.

She added: "We never said Olive was going to be a magazine that did the numbers that Good Food did. It's very niche and upmarket and about other things."

While still ahead of Olive, Seven Publishing's Delicious magazine also failed to make massive gains, but group managing director Seamus Géoghegan pointed out that this was down to Seven's decision to strip out bulks.

Topics

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s new Market Reports.

Find out more

Enjoying ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s content?

 Get unlimited access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s premium content for your whole company with a corporate licence.

Upgrade access

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content