Perceptions Can Be Changed

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

It is hard to overstate the importance of organic produce sales to the overall industry. It is not that it is such a large business — less than 1 percent of all American farm and grazing land is certified as organic, and the best estimates are that organic product, despite higher price points, still accounts for only about 2 percent of all retail sales of fresh produce. But it has been a growth area and, because the supply of organic produce is constrained — land that has been used to raise conventional produce must go through a 3-year transition before produce grown there can be certified as organic — it is one of the few areas where growers can make good profits.

Yet it is also an area of great complexity when it comes to marketing.

First, there is a bifurcated market. Some consumers seek out organics and strongly prefer them. Other consumers may or may not buy them, depending on availability, quality, and price.

Pursuing the motivated organic consumer may require a larger commitment than many retailers are able or willing to make and, in fact, it may require a commitment that goes beyond the boundary of the produce or perishable departments.

This is where research interpretation gets tricky. Although, as Bryan says, PMA’s research found “almost half (47 percent) of this group [organic shoppers] say they select their primary food store based on organic selection,” it doesn’t follow that a retailer increasing its organic selection by 10 percent will gather more customers.

There may be a set point — a minimal offering — of organic that will cause those shoppers motivated to buy organics to prefer a particular store or to find a particular retailer acceptable.

It also may require an initiative that goes beyond produce to attract true organic devotees. After all, consumers who are passionate about organic produce may also be passionate about organic meat, deli items, and grocery products.

It is also possible that a passion for organics may be a proxy for some other attribute. For example, consumers with a passion for the environment or social justice may be influenced in their choice of a primary shopping venue not only by a product selection very heavily skewed toward organics but also by a retailer that has adopted an ethos with which this customer feels an affinity.

One of the problems many conventional retailers have in marketing organics is that there is a natural hesitancy to promote any advantage to the consumer of organic produce. Conventional retailers can accept the notion of offering consumers choice, but they often hesitate to provide any justification for the price differential.

In contrast, retailers who focus on organics tend to be comfortable making stronger claims about the product.

Our own research here at Produce Business indicates Americans buy organics primarily for health reasons. This is problematic for many marketers since the evidence that people will live longer or not get diseases as a result of eating organic produce is virtually non-existent — certainly, health claims of this nature have not been approved by the FDA or other authorities.

As one of the judges of the PMA Impact Award competition, this author saw firsthand the many efforts being made to produce environmentally friendly packaging — yet, almost inevitably, the reason these packages are not the industry standard is either that they don’t work as well in actual use as already existing packaging or that they are more expensive. Whether consumers are willing to make a trade-off is certainly an area that can benefit from further research.

In a sense, it is not surprising price would be an obstacle that discourages conventional consumers from buying organic. After all, most consumers cannot provide detailed assessments of what organic means — they simply assume it is better. Therefore, the only reason not to buy organic would be the price.

If you really want to get into consumer psychology, consider this: Although consumers report the price of organics as being an obstacle to purchase, perhaps if organics were customarily sold at a discount to conventional, consumers might judge them to be of inferior quality. In this sense, the organic premium actually creates demand for organics.

Organic, which was the hot deal in produce until yesterday, has been supplanted by local in the opinion of both many retailers and much consumer research. Yet, even with local, as Bryan references in his comments, there are subtexts — consumers being patriotic, looking for fresh, looking for inexpensive, etc.

Sometimes getting away from the labels and focusing on what those labels mean to consumers can open the door to effective marketing. Though we agree with Bryan — and with Trout and Ries — that marketing must deal with perceptions, we also think that the industry has the power to influence consumer perceptions.

And two perceptions worth impressing on consumers are that consuming any type of fresh produce — conventional or organic, international, national or local — is healthful for individuals and that growing any type of fresh produce is an environmentally friendly use of land, maintaining open space, preserving topsoil and supporting rural communities.