More on Today's Consumer.

More on Today’s Consumer. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.
Yesterday, Davey McHenry, Project Manager with the Hartman Group started discussing what they have found out about “Today’s Consumer” who rarely sits down to a family meal and is concerned with what they term, “Industrial Foods.” Or foods that were invented by the food companies.
McHENRY: They’re food products that are historically disconnected from any kind of authentic food traditions. Some great examples are that classic, Cheez Whiz. How do you get anything in a bottle like that and how does it look like that? Meat snacks, whipped toppings; these are things consumers say I can’t recreate in my own kitchen.
She says while these products still have a place in consumers lives, they are starting to ask questions.
McHENRY: How good is it for me, how good is this for my family and is this really what we should be consuming? Instead they’re moving towards real food. That food created around a criteria of quality which is defined within what we call culturally salient food categories. Something that is connected to historical food categories somewhere in the world. Examples of this are coffee, bacon, cheese, pickles and things like fruit.
And McHenry says that consumers are continually redefining quality foods.
McHENRY: First and foremost, it is about the flavor; it is about the taste in a high quality product. However they are taking more things into consideration nowadays. They are looking at this idea of fresh; less processed. The terms organic, sustainable, local. All these things are now going to the consumers wheelhouse and making the determination, how quality of a product is this for me and is this really something I should be feeding my family.
More tomorrow on this topic.
That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.