Food and recipes websites have shown huge increases in visitor numbers in Australia in recent years, according to Australian market research company Roy Morgan Research.

Roy Morgan Research surveyed 18,935 Australian consumers over the age of 14 between January 2011 and December 2011.

According to the research, in the five years since 2006, the number of Australians who visited one of the five most popular recipe websites in the four weeks prior to being surveyed increased almost ten-fold, from 138,000 in 2006 to nearly 1.51 million in 2011.

The survey found that ‘Taste.com.au’ to be the most popular food / recipes website, with an average of nearly 1.2 million visitors (6.4 per cent) visiting the website in an average four week period in 2011.

Ranked second was ‘Allrecipes.com’, with 473,000 visitors in the “past four weeks”, followed by ‘Ninemsn Food’ with 221,000 visitors, ‘Cuisine.com.au’ with 92,000 visitors and ‘Gourmet Traveller’ website with 52,000 visitors.

Roy Morgan Research industry director, George Pesutto said, “The growth of these websites demonstrates the growing demand for food content. Consumers are embracing the convenience of access to huge archives of recipes, advice and information on food.

“As a communications channel, food/recipe websites like Taste.com.au are important to marketers because these sites are attracting highly valuable consumers,” he added.

“This represents an important opportunity for new products launching in this category and wanting to generate product trial, and also in terms of reaching those highly influential consumers who also guide other consumers via ‘word of mouth’ recommendations and advice,” he said.

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