Today's Consumer Part 3

Today's Consumer Part 3

Today’s Consumer Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.
Davey McHenry, Project Manager with the Hartman Group has been talking about “Today’s Consumer.” Attendees at this year’s annual Hort convention heard her discuss what todays consumer is looking for.
McHENRY: Consumers are using a variety of end product claims in making their purchase decisions. They’re looking for things such as “pesticide free,” “natural.” They’re also looking at the origin of the ingredients. “Where is this food coming from?” “Can I tell where it was grown?” “Can I tell what kind of manufacturing process it went through?” They’re looking for things that are locally grown, sustainable and seasonal.
She says that the Hartman Group out of Bellevue has been studying organics for the past 12 years.
McHENRY: And our most recent study in 2010 showed 3/4 of the U.S. consumers use organic food and beverages. 1/3 of these consumers now use organic food and beverages at least monthly. And going back to 2000 we had almost half our consumers say they never used organic. In our recent study on 25% say they’ve never used organics.
Finally she said they were surprised to find that these decisions weren’t necessarily based on economics.
McHENRY: And they’re buying more organic and local products than they were a year ago. We heard a lot when the economy kind of took a hit that organics/sustainable, these were the things people were going to give up. When times are tough, these are the things they are going to let go and we simply found that’s not true. Consumers are making trade offs but things such as organic and sustainable are there in their life to stay.
That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.  

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