Let’s begin by understanding how big the Hispanic shopper growth opportunity truly is in terms of its size and economic significance. Hispanics are:

• The second largest US ethnic group after Whites ³
• Growing 5 times faster than rest of US⁴
• Contributing 1.7 times more to GDP growth than non-Hispanics⁵
• 78% of new workers in the labor force between 2020-2030 ⁶

• 70% of new homeowners between 2020-2040 ⁷
  
   

  HISPANIC POPULATION GROWTH

  

   

  GROWTH ENGINE OF AMERICAN ECONOMY

  

  All this adds up to Hispanic spending power that has more than doubled since 2000 and is projected to reach $2.6 trillion in 2025. What explains this enormous growth?
  
  The average Hispanic household is made up of 3.2 people, compared to 2.4 for non-Hispanic White households.⁸ And 26% of Hispanic households are multigenerational family households with five or more people, almost double the number of five-plus households compared to the population in general.⁹

   

  HISPANIC BUYING POWER INCREASE
  
  

Family goes a long way to explain why Hispanic households spend 25% more on food & beverage.¹⁰ However, the true power of larger Hispanic families comes into sharper focus when we consider the composition of these households and each individual’s true lifetime value.

The median age of Hispanic shoppers is 31. That's ten years younger than 
non-Hispanic Whites.¹¹ But another factor is also at play: longevity.

Demographers have been trying to explain this “Hispanic Paradox” for decades. Despite socio-economic headwinds and limited access to quality healthcare, Hispanic Americans live longer than non-Hispanic Whites.¹²

In 2024, all this adds up to 12 more years of effective buying power for Hispanic shoppers, making investing in this group a long-term strategy that promises to pay off far longer than most.

What accounts for these larger, longer-living families and their buying power in the category? Researchers think they’ve identified a key driver. Familismo is defined as a set of cultural values embodied in family-centric cultural forms. This value is particularly prevalent in Hispanic and Latino communities and involves strong family bonds, a sense of belonging, mutual support, and the sharing of resources among family members.14

What correlates with living life the familismo way?

• More positive mental health outcomes driven by family support
   
• Significant longevity benefits fueled by social connections
   

• Larger and more frequent group rituals and the joyful family festivities that put food & beverage front and center

   

We call this the Circle of Joy.

These insights into family size, age, and longevity don’t just reveal why investing in this demographic is important; they’re key to understanding Hispanic shoppers’ unique needs, shopping behaviors, and purchase preferences. 

79% of Hispanics go shopping with someone else.¹⁵ That makes them twice as likely to shop with others than shoppers in general.

This family lens also explains why 77% of Hispanics (vs. 63% Non-Hispanic) say “displays positively influence my shopping experience.”16 When shopping with others, displays become talk pieces and triggers for social engagement. With these insights, we may begin to ask exciting questions like “how can we design the best social shopping experiences?”

When they buy, Hispanics tend to buy 20% more volume per trip.¹⁷ pepviz’s proprietary “Value Shopper Segmentation” reveals how Hispanic shoppers are significantly more likely to prefer Multipack, Variety, and Multi-Serve packs - yes, to save money on bulk purchases but more fundamentally to provide more quantity and more variety for the different tastes of larger families.¹⁸

Next, when shoppers buy for more people, they’re usually buying more frequently as well. This helps explain the results of a recent proprietary pepviz study into loyalty that showed Hispanics are significantly more likely (132 index vs. non-Hispanic) to choose stores that offer frequent buyer programs.¹⁹

The segmentation also reveals that Hispanics aren’t shopping on price any more than non-Hispanics. But Hispanics are significantly more likely to prioritize brand reputation when shopping for food & beverage products.²⁰

Why? Because, when shopping for and with others, buying the most popular or familiar brands becomes a way to show you care. (See Marias Gamesa case.)

Hispanics still shop retail more than online, driven in part by fresh produce representing a larger portion of each trip for this group. And 70% of Hispanics say they enjoy grocery shopping vs. just over half of all shoppers.²¹ (When they're shopping together so much more frequently, we know this is yet another aspect of familismo!) While in-store shopping remains the biggest opportunity, Hispanic shoppers had the highest adoption growth of online grocery from 2019-2021.²² So there is an opportunity for retailers to continue the focus on driving online penetration with this cohort by ensuring order quality/freshness for online pickup, offering Hispanic 'aisles' online and focusing attention on younger Hispanic shoppers as they are helping to close the gap between retail and online shopping.²³

Case Study:

“Like Mom’s Love”

Brand “familiarity” is key for families with strong relationships to traditionally Hispanic brands. And these relationships can date back generations. That’s why bringing local, high-quality, and reputable Hispanic products and brands to the U.S. is so important to PepsiCo and our Hispanic Business Unit.

Marias Gamesa, a renowned cookie brand whose slogan is “Like Mom’s Love”, is a perfect example. The Cafecito con Marias Gamesa campaign we developed for Mother’s Day 2023 celebrated familismo by tapping into and updating the long-standing tradition within the Hispanic community of "cafecito breaks" - friends and family coming together for informal conversations, now made possible in virtual spaces as well. 

Successful food & beverage retailers play an important role in making these moments of togetherness as special as possible. And partnering with pepviz can help accelerate the Circle of Joy by turning these insights into actionable Hispanic shopper programs. 

It starts outside the store with Hispanic media habits. And those habits are, you guessed it, social to the core. 

Hispanic shoppers are younger, more digitally native, and more socially connected than the rest of the population. In fact, they’re five times more likely to share content online than all shoppers. That’s five times! And they spend significantly more time each day on more social platforms than non-Hispanics.²⁴ 

All of these channels represent ways to get in front of Hispanics before they arrive in-store. But Hispanics are also significantly more likely to say their phone is an important tool during their shopping (index 138.)²⁵ So reaching this cohort in these digital social spaces (especially with popular, high-quality, and traditionally Hispanic brands, variety packs, and bulk discounts!) is key to driving both more in-store trips and larger basket sizes per trip. 

And consider this, familismo is at its most joyful with a festive soundtrack. More than 40% of Hispanics stream (131 index) or download (138 index) music.²⁶ So for National Hispanic Heritage month, PepsiCo not only celebrated the Spanish language with a “Savor the Cool-Tu-Ra!” cross-brand promotion showcasing authentic Hispanic flavors, but we leaned into this music insight to create an engagement-driving “Win a One Year Spotify Subscription” promotion. The results: across retail channels, this activation delivered sales growth, share wins, and drove new brand buyers.



 

Familismo also explains why group hobbies and social events are so central to this cohort. Larger families and social gatherings make participating in sporting activities more common. That’s why half of Hispanics play soccer.²⁷These gatherings also lead to more occasions to spectate together, with almost half of Hispanics saying they are college football and basketball enthusiasts.²⁸  

Tapping these behavioral insights, PepsiCo partnered with multiple national retailers across the convenience, grocery, mass and dollar channels in 2023 to create a custom program with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) featuring superstar Lionel Messi. The program included bilingual merchandising tools, thematic packaging, on-game PR and occasion-based media, and a national sweepstakes offering tickets to the UEFA Champions League Finals in Istanbul. This program alone helped drive a 15.7% increase in Salty Snack category growth vs the prior year.²⁹
This year, we’re leveraging these insights into soccer fandom and shared moments of enjoyment to take Hispanic promotions and cultural moments even further.

Our 2024 Leagues Cup multi-year sponsorship will feature thematic displays across retail stores featuring both Hispanic and non-Hispanic brands across our food & beverage portfolio, including Lay’s, Sabritas, Gamesa, and Rockstar Energy Drinks. So we and our retail partners will be right there with them at soccer or fútbol watch parties this summer, once again celebrating and benefiting from the amazing power of familismo.

And that’s the story: Hispanic Americans are closer, more social, younger, and live longer than non-Hispanics, creating one of the highest-value growth cohorts in food & beverage today and tomorrow.

All of these factors have one thing in common - familismo, a way of life and a set of values that fuel the Circle of Joy that’s always been the beating heart of food & beverage. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• When it comes to Hispanic shoppers it pays to think of shopping as a team sport 
• Make end caps and collateral socially engaging conversation starters
• Use social media and mobile as catalysts for family shopping
• Value = more quantity & more variety for the price, not just lower prices
• Popular brands and brands with a Hispanic heritage are a great way to create and reinforce social bonds 
• Sports, music, and rituals of togetherness are the stages on which the joy of familismo plays out - join in the celebration!

Actionable Insights Driving Growth

We hope you found these pepviz insights inspiring and useful. And we hope you’ll reach out to continue the conversation and partner with PepsiCo to co-create innovative Hispanic programs for your own food & beverage channels. 

Together we will continue to use data & insights to create win-win opportunities for all, designing the most delightful shopper experiences to fuel the Circle of Joy and create more smiles with every sip and every bite for generations to come.

pepviz is PepsiCo’s approach to using data & insights to foster partnership and drive growth with our forward-looking food & beverage retail customers.