Frozen bento delivery service competitors closing in on Nosh? An in-depth look at the industry today

In order to better understand frozen bento delivery services, we will be using VALUES' analytics tool Dockpit (VALUES' web behavior log analytics tool that allows users to analyze competitor sites and research trends using behavior data that is updated monthly on their browser).

First, let's see if the demands for frozen bento delivery is growing by using the search word rankings to see which keywords are often searched with "bento."
As shown in the table below, we can see that "Watami," "home delivery," "delivery," "frozen," and other search terms related to services similar to "nosh" are at the top of the list.

On the other hand, while "recipe" is ranked 5th, "easy," "meal prep," and "ingredient name" ranked 10th or lower, suggesting that more people who are making their own lunch boxes during the COVID-19 pandemic are considering home-delivery bento.

Here, we would like to examine the current situation of the frozen bento delivery industry, an industry where nosh seems to dominate, by comparing it with other existing services.

The following four companies were used for comparison.
*Companies who mainly delivery bento, and those who includes frozen bento in the broader menu are excluded (e.g., YOSHIKEI).

A comparison of the number of users visiting the sites of the four companies shows that Nosh continues to perform well, holding majority market share of the frozen bento delivery market.

On the other hand, a comparison of the number of users among the three companies other than nosh shows that GOFOOD has been performing well (growing 4.4 times more in two years) since December 2021. For Shokutakubin and Watami, an increasing trend can be observed over the last two years.
As remote work is becoming regular, a variety of frozen bento delivery services appear to be gaining ground.

We will now compare the customer attraction approach of the four companies.

A look at the trends by inflow source shows that the number of inflows from social and display advertising is on an increasing trend for Nosh. In particular, the number of inflows via social media has continued to increase since December 2021, indicating that Nosh is steadily attracting customers.

GOFOOD, which has been gaining users since December 2021, is also doing well by attracting customers through display advertising, especially through social media, like Nosh.

Looking at the composition of GOFOOD's customers attracted from social media, YouTube accounts for 67.6%.

On YouTube, commercial videos are posted with a theme song created by singer Dream Shizuka. An official channel has also been created, and there are a number of video collaborations with other YouTubers.

Commercial for GOFOOD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hu9xWrCDE8

About 70% of GOFOOD's display ad traffic comes from Facebook ads. On Facebook, often, there is creative content that exhibits a luxurious atmosphere and food made under a "chef's supervision" and food content that uses "soybean rice," known to be low in sugar.

In addition, promotion through a YouTube ad featuring TV personality Hiromi Go, which uses "go" as a pun is also performing well.

We then compare the demographics of the website visitors across the four companies.

First, a look at the male-female ratio shows that women account for more than half of the website visitors across all 4 companies, but the Nosh has the highest male ratio across all 4 companies, exhibiting an almost 50-50 male-female ratio.
It can be said that Nosh is quickly securing male customers who want to save time and effort while taking care of their health and bodies.

Looking at the creative aspect of Nosh's display ads, those featuring actor Takeru Sato and those that market messages such as "A man’s food" and "Nosh solves a lone man's food problems" are at the top of the daily display count, suggesting that the brand is trying to balance out its female-dominant user base, brought about by its "healthy" characteristic and brand image.

Then, let's look at the age ratios across the 4 companies.

Shokutakubin and Watami both have a high percentage of customers in their 50s or older, with those in their 60s or older appearing particularly high compared to the other two companies, indicating that both are able to attract senior customers.
Looking at the official websites, Shokutakubin has a large listing of “kidney disease-friendly side dishes" and "low-sodium options," and also offers "soft meals" and other products. Similarly, Watami offers "caregiving meals," and other plans that provide meals that are tailored to various age groups, which may be the reason for its popularity among seniors.

On the other hand, Nosh has a higher percentage of customers in their 20s compared to other companies. As mentioned earlier, this may be attributed to the fact that Nosh is heavily exposed to young people through its focus on promotion on social media and the exposure made possible by featuring Takeru Sato .

The target customers for the frozen bento delivery services and how it shapes its marketing messages will have a great deal to do with the future market share of each company.


In the previous graph of age ratios, GOFOOD was relatively right in the middle among the other services. Comparing the age ratio trends, we can see that Nosh has a stable number of customers in each age group, while GOFOOD has large fluctuations.
If the target user attribute of GOFOOD has not been fixed at this point, it would be interesting to see how they develop and execute a strategy in the future.

In this article, we looked into the frozen bento delivery service industry. While Nosh has been the dominated the industry in terms of number of users and continues to outperform the others, a variety of frozen bento delivery services appear to be emerging.

First, we checked whether the demands for frozen bento delivery is increasing by looking at the ranking of keywords that were commonly searched with "bento."
The results showed that "Watami," "home delivery," "delivery," "frozen," and other search terms related to services similar to Nosh occupied the top spots. It can be said that more and more people who are making their own lunch boxes due to the influence of the COVID-10 pandemic are considering home-delivery bento.

Next, we compared the number of users, customer attraction model, and user demographics for the four frozen bento delivery companies.

Comparing the number of users among the three other companies, excluding Nosh, we found that GOFOOD has been performing well (4.4 times more in two years) since December 2021. The number of users for Shokutakubin and Watami also appears to have increased over the last two years.

We also compared the customer attraction models of the four companies attracting traffic to their official websites.
GOFOOD, which has seen significant growth in the number of users in recent years, has been performing well with display ads and social media in particular, like Nosh.

We then compared the user attributes of those who visited the four company websites.
First, while women accounted for more than half of all users across all four companies, Nosh has the highest ratio of male users among the four companies, indicating that the male-female ratio was almost 50-50.
It can be said that by incorporating and strengthening the image of male users into its advertisements, Nosh has been able to quickly secure male customers who are looking for a quick and easy way to make healthy meals that also consider their health and bodies.

Next, a comparison of age ratios shows that Shokutakubin and Watami have a high percentage of users in their 50s or older, indicating that both are able to attract senior customers. On the other hand, nosh shows a higher percentage of users in their 20s than the other services. This may be attributed to the fact that the Nosh brand has a large exposure to young people.
The age ratio of GOFOOD is relatively right in the middle of the other services, and a look at the ratio shows that there are large fluctuations. It is yet to be seen how they will plan their media exposure and targeting strategies to further attract customers.

The data in this research is from Dockpit, an analytics tool with online behavior log data and user demographic information under the permission of panelists in Japan presented by VALUES, Inc.

※The numbers of users are estimated by the data in the monitor and the internet population in Japan.