A $300 billion opportunity: Serving the emerging Black American consumer.
There’s a big market to be unearthed if companies meet the real needs of Black consumers. In 2019, consumer expenditures by Black households totaled approximately $835 billion. Combined spending by all Black households has increased 5 percent annually over the past two decades. It has outpaced the growth rate of combined spending by White households (3 percent), driven mostly by faster population growth. Companies filling these needs could tap into $300 billion of value annually. the share of expenditures Black households direct to these three categories rose from 38 percent in 1984 to 45 percent in 2019. Buying healthy, affordable food is a harder task for the residents of many majority Black communities. One out of every five Black households is situated in a food desert, with few grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers markets. Unspoken “supermarket redlining” in many Black communities means that food is more expensive, choice is limited, and healthy organic products are harder to come by. This can reinforce poor nutrition, especially when convenience stores, whose offerings may not be considered health-oriented, are more often located in Black neighborhoods.