Revealed: Nations that spend most time in cooking

Indians spend the highest time in the world cooking meals, which is four times higher than their Asian compatriot South Korean – who spend the least.

Indians on average spend 13.2 hours per week on cooking compared to 3.7 hours by South Koreans, says the survey.

Conducted by market research firm GfK, the survey asked more than 27,000 people aged 15 or older across 22 countries about how many hours per week they spend cooking - and how knowledgeable, experienced and passionate they are about food and cooking.

Internationally, people who cook say that they spend, on average, just under six-and-a-half hours a week doing this (not counting those who don't cook at all). And the classic stereotype holds true, with women saying just over seven-and-a-half hours per week cooking, compared to men's five-hours a week.

This overall figure is heavily led by top five most active countries.

In India and Ukraine, people spend just over 13 hours a week cooking, falling to nine-and-a-half hours for South Africa. Indonesia comes next with more than eight hours, followed by Italy, just topping seven hours.

Countries where people say they spend the least amount of time cooking each week are Brazil (slightly more than five hours), Turkey (slightly less than five hours) and South Korea, which is trailing well behind at less than four hours, possibly due to the popularity of its inexpensive street food carts.

Overall, just under a third of people (30 per cent of both men and women) say they cook for fun at least once a week - and a further quarter claim to do this every day or most days (33 per cent of women and 21 per cent of men).

Udo Jansen, GfK's Global Director for tracking sales of small domestic appliances, said: "This study delivers valuable insight for businesses offering food and cooking products or services, especially when combined with our sales trends for electric kitchen appliances worldwide. For example, we are seeing growing demand for electric food preparation appliances in India, Indonesia and Italy. Our combination of attitudinal insight and actual sales trends is unbeatable in revealing which markets and consumer segments present the greatest commercial opportunities for our clients."

Knowledge and experience of cooking

Overall, 29 per cent of people claim to have great knowledge and experience about food and cooking - but this is again led by women who stand at a third (34 per cent), compared to just a quarter (25 per cent) of men.

Breaking this down into individual countries, South Africa and India top the list, with around half of people (50 and 48 per cent respectively) agreeing, or agreeing strongly, that this applies to them. Also in the top five are Turkey and Ukraine at 40 per cent each and Indonesia at 38 per cent.

At the bottom end of the scale, we see Spain, France, Russia and Australia - with just one in five (20 per cent) believing they have great knowledge and experience with food and cooking. These are followed by Belgium at 19 per cent and South Korea trailing well behind at only 13 per cent.

Passion for cooking

Looking at genders, an average 37 per cent of women and 27 per cent of men across all 22 countries agree that they are really passionate about food and cooking.

Interestingly, when we look at individual countries, the findings show that knowledge and experience of food and cooking does not always relate to passion for these things.

Turkey, which was third for claiming knowledge and experience, falls to seventh place (equal with USA) when asked about passion for cooking, and Ukraine (4th for knowledge) slips to 11th place. Instead, we see Italy and Mexico (7th and 8th respectively for knowledge) appear in the top five countries claiming cooking passion.

In fact, Italy leads all other countries in this area, with 43 per cent agreeing or agreeing strongly that they are really passionate about food and cooking.

They are very closely followed by South Africa (42 per cent), Indonesia and Mexico (40 per cent) and India (39 per cent).

By comparison, the lowest ranking countries - Poland, Sweden, Belgium and Russia - all have only about one in five passionate about cooking, while the bottom place of all is again claimed by South Korea, at just 13 per cent.

[Image: Courtesy Shutterstock]

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