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Animal Ag Watch By Hannah Thompson-Weeman
Hannah Thompson-Weeman is president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance.

What do consumers want?

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)

Last week, we kicked off the Alliance’s annual Stakeholders Summit with a live consumer focus group. We worked with a market research firm to find seven grocery shoppers from the DC area who were invited to come and answer a few questions about food and farming.

The catch? The panelists knew they had an audience, but what they did not know until near the end of the session was that it was full of farmers, agriculture professionals and food company leaders.

Our intention was to allow our audience a direct view into how their customers view food and farming. We spend a lot of time in agriculture (and at the Alliance) talking about what consumers think and want – why not have them tell us in their own words?

I was pretty nervous about how the panel would go. It’s not hard to guess that DC-area citizens and people directly engaged in production agriculture would have different views and values when it comes to food. Our goal in starting the Summit with the panel was to illustrate the importance of engagement with our customers to help us better understand their motivations and how we can answer their questions and concerns about food. I’d say by all the conversations sparked by the panel that we accomplished that.

One of the biggest takeaways for me is that there is no “the consumer” – while it’s easy to make generalities, each individual grocery shopper has their own priorities and opinions. Even among our panel of seven there were distinct opinions on buying organic, wanting to see more of the slaughter process and which grocery stores were best.

Of the few items of consensus from the panel, perhaps the strongest was skepticism. Because of all the conflicting information they hear about food, they are left skeptical of most claims and information sources. In a word association question, one panelist responded that “natural” was “not necessarily a good thing,” while another called the term free range “bogus.”

When asked how animal agriculture could reach consumers to tell our story, panelists recommended educating youth through classrooms and schools; being on social media and being more transparent (showing ‘behind the scenes’ images and footage, involving third-party verification). Sound familiar? Many of these strategies are already being employed by companies and organizations. The bad news is, clearly we aren’t breaking through. But there is good news - our consumers are hungry to hear more from us.

During the discussion, a large animal veterinarian with an animal health company asked a question about antibiotic use. A panelist responded “you look like you know a lot about antibiotics and cows, and if I could spend some time talking with you I’m sure I would be fine with it.”

While I’m not sure what the first part of her answer meant, the second part gives me hope. The theme of the Summit was “Action, Please,” and I’m challenging us all to take action by finding more opportunities to foster open, honest dialogue between farmers and industry experts and the most important stakeholders of all – our customers.

If you’re interested in hearing more from this panel or others at Summit, recorded presentations will be posted as they are available here.

5/17/2016

 
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