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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Consumers Prefer Locally Grown Foods
  • Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 09:48:35 -0700


© Newswise.
All Rights Reserved.

Source: Iowa State University Released: Tue 09-Dec-2003

Consumers Prefer Locally Grown Foods
Contact Information
Contacts:
Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, (515) 294-1854
Laura Miller, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, (515) 294-5272
Teddi Barron, News Service, (515) 294-4778


Description

The term locally grown, when combined with family farms, appears to be a
powerful marketing message, according to a study. If price and appearance were
equal, consumers said they would choose products that were grown by local
family
farms over organic options.

Newswise — Consumers who participated in a recent marketing survey were
enthusiastic about locally grown food and supportive of the farmers who grow
it.
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University
conducted the study.

“The term locally grown, when combined with family farms, appears to be a
powerful marketing message,” said Leopold Center Marketing and Food Systems
coordinator Rich Pirog. “Consumers said that if price and appearance were
equal,
they would choose products with these features over organic options.”

Pirog’s observations stem from an Internet study that tested prototypes for
food ecolabels – seals or logos indicating that a product has met a certain
set
of environmental and/or social criteria. The study included survey responses
from more than 1,600 consumers in Iowa and seven other Midwestern states and
the Boston and Seattle metropolitan areas.

In the survey, consumers were asked to respond to one of three sets of
ecolabel prototypes for fresh produce (grapes) that conveyed information on
product
origin, distance from farm to point of sale, transport method and the
environmental impact of its transport measured by the amount of fuel
emissions. They
also were asked a series of questions about their perceptions of locally
grown/raised products and meats. Another group of consumers in the survey did
not
view any ecolabels.

More than 75 percent of the consumers in both groups chose the products
labeled “grown locally by family farmers” as their first choice for
produce or
meat products. In both groups, consumers were most responsive to labels that
connected product freshness with the time (in days) that it took for the
product
to travel from farm to store.

About 25 percent of the consumers in both groups said they would pay a
premium of 6 to 15 percent for products with these additional qualities.

Pirog said a similar response came from a second, smaller population sample
in the study—managers of food-related businesses, such as supermarkets, meat
lockers and distributors.

“Food business respondents perceived that more than 50 percent of their
customers would be interested in ecolabels,” he said. “Although their
idea of
local was much broader geographically than the one held by consumers, they
said
that their customers would most often request 'grown locally' over other
options, with price and appearance being equal.”

Pirog said the results show that ecolabels can be an effective way to educate
consumers about locally grown, sustainably raised foods. Although not rated
as highly in the survey, a product’s secondary benefits—low environmental
costs and support for the local economy and farmers—can be linked to
freshness and
quality, issues of critical importance to consumers.

Pirog noted that conclusions drawn from this Internet study, although
commonly used in product marketing research, cannot be applied to a general
population. Consumer respondents did not represent a statistically random
sample of the
three geographical areas but were selected randomly from e-mail address lists
owned by a survey administrator.

Pirog is working with the Business Analysis Laboratory at Iowa State to
refine the ecolabel concept. The work is part of the Leopold Center’s
marketing and
food systems initiative, which includes projects directed by center staff and
researchers from ISU and other Iowa organizations. The market research also
has looked at food miles—the distance produce travels from the farm to
point of
purchase in both local and conventional marketing systems.

The report, "Ecological Value Assessment: Consumer and food Business
Perceptions of Local Foods," is available on the Leopold Center’s web site,
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu (look under Papers and Information), or
contact the
center at (515) 294-3711.

Through its research and education programs, the Leopold Center supports the
development of profitable farming systems that conserve natural resources.
Center funding comes from state appropriations and from fees on nitrogen
fertilizer and pesticides, as established by the 1987 Iowa Groundwater
Protection Act.

© 2003 Newswise. All Rights Reserved.

*************************************
Sherry Alpern
* NY Farms!
* NYC Wholesale Farmers' Market Study
718-789-7692 alp140@aol.com




  • [Livingontheland] Consumers Prefer Locally Grown Foods, Tradingpost, 12/09/2003

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