Convenience is now more important than healthfulness to many Americans when buying foods and beverages, according to new research from the International Food Information Council released today – potentially signaling a shift in how marketers should position products to drive sales.
For 20 years, convenience remained solidly below healthfulness, price and taste on consumers’ list of priorities when buying food and beverages, even as the percentage of Americans who listed it as a factor in their purchase decision climbed from 48% in 2006 to 52% in 2025, according to data from IFIC’s 2025 Food & Health Survey.
But in the past year, the percentage of Americans who prioritized convenience shot up to 61%, while those who listed healthfulness dipped to 56% in 2026, following a downward decline that began in 2025 when it dropped to 57% from 62% in 2024, according to IFIC, which has gathered the same data as part of its annual survey for 21 years.
This year’s survey included 3,005 Americans and – for the first time – 1,006 Canadians aged 18 to 80 years, and was fielded between March 22 and April 8. The results were weighted to ensure they reflect the American population.
Convenience wasn’t the only purchasing priority that increased in consumers’ estimation. Taste, price and environmental sustainability also increased significantly as well, noted Kris Sollid, senior director of research and consumer insights at IFIC.
According to the survey, taste is the top driver of food and beverage purchases for 88% of Americans in 2026, up from 84% in 2025. Price rose from 71% last year to 78% this year, and environmental sustainability rose to 30% from 27% in 2025, according to IFIC.
This suggests that the crossover between healthfulness and convenience is not necessarily driven by people devaluing healthfulness, it is that they are now valuing convenience more compared to the last year, while healthfulness did not change, he explained.
Income impacts shopping priorities
How Americans prioritize these factors changes when income is added to the equation.
While the importance of convenience holds steady across most income brackets, with 61% to 64% listing it as the top priority, it dips into the upper fifties among the upper two most echelons.
Healthfulness, on the other hand, steadily rises in importance alongside income, with 47% of consumers who make less than $20,000 a year listing it as the top priority compared to 68% who list it as a top priority and make more than $150,000 a year, according to the survey.
As such, healthfulness beats convenience for the top two income tiers.
“Things like healthfulness and other factors may become more of a priority just based simply on what you’re able to accomplish or where you’re able to put your headspace based on your disposable income,” Sollid said.
The importance of taste also rises along income continuum, climbing from 81% in the lowest bracket to 94% in the highest, according to the results. As does price – at least for the lowest three brackets from 78% to 83% before declining steadily across the next four brackets before it lands at 71% for Americans with the highest income.
How consumers define convenience varies
Fundamental to the game of musical chairs between healthfulness and convenience as a top purchase driver is how consumers define them.
Sollid acknowledged that convenience is an ambiguous term that is likely defined differently by consumers based on their circumstances, including financial means, cooking skills, access and appetite.
For example, some respondents likely consider takeout or delivery from a restaurant to be convenient, while others who have the skills, tools and ingredients may consider cooking a meal faster and therefore more convenient, Sollid said.
How consumers define healthy is evolving
How Americans define healthy is also changing for the first time in years, according to the IFIC data – including survey results gathered within months of the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans coming out.
“For four years running, we had seen fresh, good source of protein and low sugar take the top spots in terms of the criteria consumers use” to define healthy, out of a list of 20 attributes that IFIC has provided for the past five years in the survey, Sollid said.
“This year, we see a change in those top three,” he said.
Fresh and good source of protein still top the chart with 40% and 33% of consumers citing them, but these are flip-flopped and down from last year, when 38% of consumers listed good source of protein and 36% listed fresh, according to IFIC data.
But more notably, “good source of nutrients” usurped “low in sugar” for third place in 2026 compared to 2025. The percentage of Americans listing good source of nutrients held steady both years at 31%, but low in sugar dropped to 29% in 2026 from 34% in 2025.
Other factors that rose, including no artificial ingredients, which increased 10% from 2022 to 27% in 2026, minimal or no process, which rose 6% to 26% in the same period, and limited number of ingredients, which climbed from 9% in 2022 to 16% in 2026.
This shows that ingredients and processing are slowly and steadily gaining importance in how Americans define a healthy food, which Sollid noted has “lots of intersections” with ongoing conversations about ultra-processed foods and convenience.
Ultra processed foods has reached a tipping point
The importance Americans place on processing is rising alongside their familiarity – if not understanding – of the term ultra-processed food.
According to IFIC, 52% of Americans surveyed in 2026 were familiar with the term ultra-processed food – up from 44% in 2025 and 32% in 2024.
While awareness of UPFs is on the rise, IFIC data shows there is not much consensus on how to identify the products – likely complicated by a lack of a legal or formal definition, although the FDA requested information to help it define the term and Trump administration officials say the definition will come soon.
IFIC found the most common approaches consumers use to identify ultra-processed foods are looking at the ingredient list, which was cited 56% of respondents, and looking at the Nutrition Facts label, noted by 51% of consumers.
Neither indicate processing.
Compared to 2025, more Americans say they would use an AI assistant (up 5% to 23% in 2026) or ask a friend of family member (up 3% to 11% in 2026) to help them identify an ultra-processed food.
Likewise, the percentage of Americans who said they “just know what an ‘ultra-processed food’ is when they see it” is up 12% from 2025 to 23% in 2026, according to IFIC.
Industry implications
The shifts in how consumers prioritize and define healthy, and balance it with convenience creates a complicated marketing landscape for CPG companies.
One take away could be that the products most likely to resonate with Americans may be those that make healthy choices feel effortless rather than requiring tradeoffs.
Another takeaway is that ultra processing is increasingly influential, but without a formal definition it becomes an elephant in the room that is difficult to address – although several certification schemes are in flight.
Ultimately though, the biggest takeaway may not be that convenience has overtaken healthfulness, but that consumers increasingly expect the two to go hand in hand.
