Tag Archives: priorities

A recent Supermarket News study found that the food industry is somewhat disconnected from consumer perceptions and is underestimating the scope of trends that are important to them.

The results showed that 52% of consumers indicated that having local food available at their primary store is “very important”—but only 38% of industry participants believe availability of local food is a priority for consumers.  On another subject, 96% of consumers consider themselves to be more health conscious now than they were a year ago.  The industry again, underestimated, guessing that 84% of consumers would view themselves as more health conscious than last year.  The study also found that 20% of consumers say they regularly modify recipes to make them healthier, but only 8.2% of food industry participants thought that was the case.

While each of the subject areas specifically identified by the study are interesting and deserves to be looked at more closely, the real value of the results go far beyond the scope of this research.  Hopefully, these findings are a reality check for retailers, manufacturers and marketers alike.  We need to make sure we truly understand consumers and be able to quickly identify shifts in priorities, values, behaviors and spending. Consumers get smarter and more savvy by the hour; marketers who don’t keep up with that will be left behind.  Underestimating consumer preference is sure to result in a delayed or inappropriate retail response as well as a missed opportunity.