Demeter Communications has asked consumers some questions about food production and you might find the answers interesting. They launched a proprietary market research tool called SEGMENTrak to do this.
Demeter Communications has set out to track opinions about food production practices among “indicator consumers.”
“We want to shift from a defensive position to one of proactively talking to consumers about how their food is produced,” said Claudine Wargel, M.S., senior partner with Demeter Communications, and the market researcher who heads up the project.
These data are part of Demeter’s targeted market research tool, SegmenTrakTM, a nationally-representative consumer opinion tracking survey fielded for the first time earlier this year. The online study focused on those likely to adapt perceptions and practices ahead of the general public – what Demeter calls “”indicator consumers.”
“Successfully explaining in consumer terms how food is produced has really become a requirement for product acceptance,” said Claudine Wargel, senior partner with Demeter Communications. The firm specializes in helping agricultural companies and associations connect with consumers and their influencers. Demeter’s first SegmenTrakTM study was conducted in February 2010. The data show that while indicator consumers think favorably of farmers, they have a number of questions about their on-farm practices and how they impact food. SegmenTrakTM explores what consumers want to know from farmers and what they would change about modern food production, as well as where they currently get their information about how food is produced.
More than three-fourths want to know more about “measures used to produce safe food” (76 percent “agree/strongly agree”). The next response was “ways they ensure animal care” (68 percent “agree/strongly agree”). Also ranked highly were “measures they take to protect the water” (64 percent) and “how they make farming sustainable” (61 percent). Wargel said that while this was an aided response question, it reveals a significant point.
You can find the Executive Summary here (pdf).