An Urban's Rural View

What stood out in this Fast Company magazine article (http://tiny.cc/…) were the survey statistics:

-- 70% of those surveyed said they buy some organic food but only 20% thought they knew what organic means.

-- 59% expressed concern about GMOs but only 32% could define GMO.

Now, granted, the sample size was small. BFG, the agency that conducted the study, interviewed 300 shoppers, most of them younger than 35.

But does anyone really doubt the survey? Maybe not the precise numbers, but the direction, seems right. Other studies have sounded a similar note: Everyone eats but few know much about food (http://tiny.cc/…).

That's hardly a shocking notion. There's a lot to know about a lot of things in this bewildering world; no one can master more than the smallest part of it all. If we're honest with ourselves, most of us would admit that we've bought a product or voted for a candidate or judged an acquaintance based on sketchy information -- even no information.

Which raises a question: When we lack the necessary information, what substitutes for facts? Opinions, for one thing. People may not know what organic food is but they "know" it's good for them. They may not know what a GMO is but they "know" GMOs are bad.

Which raises another question, one that preoccupies marketers, politicians, public-relations people and psychologists: Where do our opinions come from? What makes us embrace one view and reject another?

Whole books have been written on this, but a simple way to think about it is to imagine yourself in a wine store. Even if you're an oenophile, chances are you won't know much about many of the bottles. How do you decide what to buy?

One way is to trust the wine merchant. He spends his whole day dealing in wine; if he recommends a particular Cabernet, he must know something about it. He's an authority.

Another way is to trust the ratings from wine magazines that the store conveniently provides for at least some of the wines. Who knows how the magazine decided one wine merits a 91 and another an 87, but the numbers imply it was done with confidence. Again: authority.

A third way also involves a number -- the subtle but powerful signal communicated by price. The more expensive the wine, the better it must be -- right? It's human nature to think so.

Organic food benefits from a similar presumption. People may not know what organic food is, but they know it costs more. It must be better.

Last April Walmart announced it was teaming up with Wild Oats to provide organic food at more affordable prices (http://tiny.cc/…). That's a scary thought for organic farmers. They have to hope the effort isn't too successful -- or, if it's successful, that its success comes at the expense of the middleman's profit rather than the farmer's.

Yet if the wine analogy holds, Walmart might want to stop short of eliminating the organic premium altogether. A lower price might tempt newcomers to try organics; too low a price might turn off long-time organic customers.

To be sure, the higher price isn't the only reason some people buy organic food. There is also, to continue with the wine analogy, the perception of authority. People may not know what organic food is, but they know there are activists and nutritionists and celebrity chefs recommending it. And Walmart may well calculate that the increase in demand elicited by lower prices will swamp the wine-store effect.

It will be interesting, then, to see how far Walmart can push organic prices down -- and how far it wants to push them.

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

(CZ)

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