It’s Just An Appetizer

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

We are very fortunate to be part of an industry that has an association, such as PMA, willing and able to support such important research. It is only by knowing what customers think and are concerned about that we can develop and effectively market products that consumers will value.

Yet, it is also frustrating — a review of the research also points out the limitations of consumer surveys. Respondents may lie, engage in wishful thinking or give the answer they think is “right.” And, when asked questions outside the realm of their experience, they may not even know what they really think.

Consumers aren’t the only ones inclined to wishful thinking. In interpreting research, it is tempting to pluck out supportive information and leave the rest for further research.

We have done an excellent job of spreading the word that fresh produce is good for you. So much so that we have “tainted” the jury pool. When we ask questions, people feel compelled to align themselves with the good — though their actions often speak otherwise.

Re-read this summary of the research on consumer attitudes toward produce in foodservice done in May:

“…produce is also taking on a greater share of the plate and is sometimes moving increasingly to the center of the plate. In May, consumers told us that when dining out they are purchasing more entrée salads (44 percent), side salads (56 percent), fresh-cut fruit salads (42 percent) and vegetarian entrées (26 percent).”

It sounds like fantastic news, but what is it telling us? My guess: It is an idealized version of what people believe they should be doing — not what people do but what the culture is telling people they ought to do.

Learning what consumers think they are supposed to say can be very valuable. But we have to understand that in consumer research, rather than automatically accepting what consumers say as an accurate description of their behavior, the more interesting question is, “Why do consumers tell us that?”

The May figures can’t be literally true. If such enormous percentages of people were really switching to entrée salads, adding side salads, buying fresh-cut fruit salads and giving up meat entirely to go vegetarian, we would see massive increases in consumption. The news reports would be filled as big foodservice distributors were struggling to build enough refrigerated capacity to keep up.

Unless, of course, it is literally true but the base is very small. If only 1 percent of the people bought fresh-cut fruit salads once a year but now that number is up 42 percent, then the results could be literally true but not matter that much for consumption.

So we need far more information to grasp the meaning and importance of this data. Often the questions answered lead to more questions. Think about this report from July:

“…33 percent of those households reported the level of flexitarian eating has increased in the last few years, and 29 percent of households with a vegetarian reported that this preference has increased.”

Flexitarian implies a mostly vegetarian diet but without a hard-and-fast rule against animal products. Many flexitarians eat fish or occasionally meat. But do people who eat less meat eat more fresh produce? We don’t know. Perhaps health concerns motivate them to eat less meat — and to eat less overall. Their diet may be more weighted toward fresh produce in percentage terms but in actual volume consumed, it might be less than a typical American omnivore. Or pasta and grain-based foods might fill the place of meat or they may disproportionately eat frozen or canned produce.

Another enormous issue that colors a great deal of the research done on produce is the fact that we don’t know how accurately consumers can identify “fresh” produce, especially at foodservice operations, and we don’t know how much they care if the product is fresh. By far the greatest competitor for fresh broccoli is frozen broccoli. How loyal consumers are too fresh and when and where they will use frozen or canned makes an enormous difference to the fresh produce industry. The research we’ve been able to do so far is just a starting point. A lot more work is required before we can understand what consumers are saying sufficiently to feel confident acting upon the knowledge.

Another issue is the difficulty of syncing the consumer and trade usage of a word. When we ask consumers about “take-home meals” or “fresh-cut,” do they understand these words as the trade does? Or are we, literally, speaking different languages? We have to be careful not to assume we are all on the same page but to research these actual points.

It is difficult to ascertain how consumers act in real life. When a consumer says “taste” is very important, does that reflect shopping behavior? Does it mean preference or avoidance of an item based on how it tasted last time? Does it mean consumers value sampling programs? Does it mean they want lessons on how to select ripe produce? And if both “taste” and “nutrition” are important, how do consumers weigh one against the other?

The more we know, the more questions we are able to ask. And that is the great benefit of the 2006 PMA research. It sets the stage to help us ask better questions about consumers, our products, and our shopping venues.

In April 2006, Bryan’s research report was a first-person observation from China. He told us of how the Great Wall, under construction for 2,000 years, was intended to keep out the Mongols. It was a big task, but understanding the constantly changing consumer is a big task as well. We have many more years of research ahead of us.

Yet we begin 2007 in better shape than we entered 2006 because we’ve been researching all year, and, as Lao-Tzu reminded us: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We have begun.