Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
The kitchen is rapidly becoming the entertainment zone of the home, according to new research, with televisions and stereos now commonplace.
Legal & General’s new Changing Face of British Homes report asked a representative sample of over 4,000 people what items they had in their kitchen and found that 20% had a television. And televisions are particularly popular with multi-generation households, at 25%.
However, with modern technology visibly encroaching on the kitchen, many households are now relegating some of the more traditional items and appliances associated with cooking and cleaning to other areas of the home, says the report.
Of these more traditional items it found that 70% did not have a dryer in the kitchen, 66% did not have a dishwasher, 25% a washing machine, 24% a freezer, 12% a microwave, 7% a fridge and 6% a cooker or oven.
Same-gender couples emerged as the real technoholics. They are almost as likely to have a stereo as a microwave – 23% and 24% respectively – in their kitchen, and 25% also have a television.
Ten per cent of young professionals claim not have an oven in their kitchen but are far more likely to have a stereo – 32%. In fact, overall, people are more likely to have a stereo, 28%, than a washing machine, 25%, in their kitchen.
Garry Skelton, marketing director at Legal & General’s general insurance business, commented: “It’s interesting to see the role of the kitchen evolving from that of its traditional association with food and cooking appliances. This clearly reflects people’s increasingly diverse lifestyles. The research has unveiled an emerging trend for people to surround themselves with the technology in the kitchen that is elsewhere in the house.”
