Reason For Skepticism

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

It is hard to know what to make of a study such as this. Part of the problem is that the sponsors of the study are very opaque as to the methodology. It is an Internet-based survey, which — it is claimed — is representative of the U.S. population. But how these people were solicited, how non-Internet users are represented, how self-reported characteristics were verified, and how deep they went to ensure these 2,000 people represent the U.S. population — religion, ethnicity, education, income, etc. — is left unclear.

And there is a reason for skepticism. The study is sponsored by an organization with decided interests. They didn’t go out and hire Gallup or Cornell University to design and conduct the survey.

The big problem with this research may be, however, that the very nature of asking questions about people’s desire to receive information doesn’t allow for a value-neutral response. For example, saying “no” to the question may imply that the person being surveyed is being judged as a bad person for not saying “yes.”

Consumers may perceive being asked if they would like to receive information as a question of their virtue as citizens, parents, and spouses. After all, if respondents say they really have little interest in reading about the way laborers are paid, doesn’t that make them negligent citizens? If they are not interested in reading about food safety on the food they are going to prepare for their children and families, doesn’t that make them lousy parents? And if they don’t want to invest time in studying the business ethics of various firms and doing a deep dive into how these companies treat animals, doesn’t that make them just callous people?

We know that despite the constant repetition of the claims that people want to know all these things, there is precious little evidence that the broad masses of consumers changed their purchasing habits to align with these supposed demands of consumers for transparency.

The evidence we do have indicates consumers change purchasing habits mostly in response to specific negative events. So, if a supermarket is found to be buying from slave labor, it may impact sales. On the contrary, we can’t find any impact on consumer purchases when one supermarket is more generous than another on pay,
vacation or other benefits.

Another issue is consumer ignorance. On the Internet, it is easy to find videos of talk show hosts and others interviewing people on the street about GMOs. Even on such a hot-button issue, the videos are humorous — specifically, because it is easy to find people who swear they are actively avoiding GMOs in their diet, but also have simply no idea what a GMO is, what the term means, or why or how GMOs might be bad for us.

Recent studies indicate about 80 percent of the population wants mandatory disclosure of GMO in food — a seemingly powerful endorsement of the transparency agenda The Center for Food Integrity is promoting. Seemingly … but then one has to recognize that Professor Jayson Lusk of Oklahoma State University’s Department of Agriculture Economics conducted a survey finding 80 percent of Americans also want disclosure about their food containing DNA! And more than half of the respondents answered “false” when confronted with the statement: “All vegetables contain DNA.”

How seriously can we take survey responses in which consumers claim they desperately want transparency on things they know nothing about?

Now, none of this is an argument against transparency. It may well be that consumers would like transparency, specifically because most consumers don’t know and don’t care about certain topics. They may figure that others, such as activists, will monitor these disclosures and will make a big fuss if something is wrong. For uninformed shoppers, this may be a prudent approach.

For producers and retailers, the argument for transparency may not be directly related to sales. It is more like the argument for an open kitchen in a restaurant. The official reason may be theatre and to enhance the experience of the guests, but sotto voce, the argument is that if you do everything in public viewing, you are much less likely to see bad behavior occur or to find bad conditions tolerated.

So for companies that want to do the right thing — that want to institutionalize best values and best practices — keeping these efforts transparent makes it more likely they will be sustained.

Sustained efforts over long periods of time do build trust. So although consumers are probably overstating their real interest in knowing the details, and consumers probably think better of companies that behave transparently, producers and retailers looking to build trust are advised to operate transparently.