(meatingplace.com) -- Sixty-nine percent of respondents to a survey by San Francisco-based marketing communications firm Context Marketing said they will pay more for "ethically produced" foods.
"Ethical" is a broad term when consumers apply it to food purchases, according to Bob Kenney, Context Marketing principal. He noted in a news release that when asked to identify what they meant by "ethical food," more than 90 percent of respondents identified three main qualities: protects the environment, meets high quality and safety standards and treats farm animals humanely.
According to the survey, 69 percent of respondents said they will pay more for food produced to higher ethical standards. Of this total, 57 percent are willing to pay up to a 10 percent premium for ethical food, and 12 percent say they will pay even more. Many consumers also said they are more loyal to food brands they see as ethically produced and are more likely to recommend them to others.
Context Marketing conducted the survey online in January among 600 adults ages 20 to 64, equally representing men and women living in major U.S. markets.
Sort & Cull Comments: Surveys of this type make me nervous. It's one thing to choose between Candidate A and Candidate B, but quite another to answer “yes” or “no” to queries that sound like essay questions.
Furthermore, it’s always good to know who’s asking the questions. My hunch is that “Context Marketing” has more than a passing interest in encouraging the economic underpinnings of locavorism, the new fad among foodies and health nuts to avoid major groceries in favor of farmer markets and local producers. Check out the full summary of the survey and see what you think: http://contextmarketing.com/…
It’s not that I don’t want to believe these results. The general idea of consumers willing to pay for added value always has a tremendous amount of sex appeal. Yet all too often meat producers have found that the flirting was a lot more fun than the actual date.
Talk is cheap, and when it comes to food expenditures in this country, that sentiment may be literally true. Americans spend less than 10 percent of disposable income on food, much lower than most other industrial countries. Such frugality is a tough habit to break.
I guess I can believe that a small number of green consumers are willing pay more for “ethical food” (whatever that is). But color me skeptical that such generosity is a galloping trend among consumers at large. I hope I’m wrong.
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www.feelofthemarket.com
(KM)
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