Consumer Food Insights - March 2022

The results from the March edition (now issue #3) of our newly launch Consumer Food Insights (CFI) survey from the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability (CFDAS) at Purdue are now available.

This month, we continued tracking many of the key measures I’ve discussed in previous months. Here are some highlights:

• The Sustainable Food Purchasing (SFP) Index was unchanged from last month and it is at 68 out of 100.

• There was a slight decrease in the the share of consumers indicating they couldn’t find specific foods at the store (a fall from 25% to 21%) from February to March

• Total food spending increased by 8% from last month

• At present, we find consumer food demand is price insensitive.

This month’s report has several new analyses and questions. First, we conduced a deeper dive into how responses varied by consumer income. Higher income consumers tend to rate the sustainability of their diets as higher than do lower income consumers, particularly on dimensions related to taste, security, economics, and nutrition. By contrast, there was very little difference in high vs. low income on sustainability dimensions related to social and environment.

In addition to answering questions about how shopping behaviors relate to six sustainability dimensions, we also ask respondents to allocate 100 points to these six dimensions in terms of their importance when buying food. Perhaps not surprisingly, lower income consumers placed a higher weight on affordability than did higher income consumers. By contrast, higher income consumers placed more weight on taste and nutrition than did lower income consumers. There was little income difference in the weight attached to social responsibility, environmental impact, or availability across income categories.

Higher income consumers are happier with their diets and are much less likely to be waiting on their next payment to buy food for their household.

To track whether consumers are beginning to shop in a more price-responsive, or recessionary, manner, we asked if respondents would purchase a basket of brand name groceries priced at $100 or a comparable basket of generic name groceries priced at either $85 or $70 (the amount randomly varied across respondents). Higher income households were much more likely to say they’d choose branded over generic products than lower income consumers. However, for all three income groups, none were particularly sensitive to the change in price of brand vs. generic.

There are also income differences in support for food policies. Lower income households showed more support for policies like increasing funding for ag research, but they showed less support for fast food zoning and sweetened beverage taxes as compared to higher income consumers.

We added several new questions this month related to how food away from home spending varies by different type of outlet (and by in-person vs. drive through vs. delivery), and we added questions about consumers’ beliefs about various food-related issues. There was strong agreement that climate change will impact food prices, and less agreement that GMOs are safe or that plant-based milk is healthier than dairy milk. Perhaps an indication of chemophobia or general distrust of unknown substances, 26% agreed that food with deoxyribonucleic acid (i.e., DNA) is unsafe to eat.

There’s a lot more in the report. Check the whole thing out here.

Consumer Food Insights - February 2022

I’m pleased to share the 2nd edition of our new Consumer Food Insights (CFI) survey (check here for more background and results from the inaugural release).

Overall, we observed a high degree of stability in a number of our measures including the Sustainable Food Purchasing Index, preferences for food policies, and food/diet happiness and satisfaction, and shopping behaviors. While it perhaps isn’t exciting to report little to no change in many of these measures, it does suggest reliability in our survey methods and points to the fact that we are getting at fundamental measures of consumer attitudes and behaviors that are stable across time. It also suggests that when we do observe significant changes in the future, we can be more confident that fundamental shifts are occurring rather than just picking up sampling error or spurious fluctuations.

We did observe an increase in consumers’ food price inflation expectations and a corresponding increase in consumers’ spending on food at home and away from home. Increasing inflation expectations are a bit worrisome because expectations of future price increases can lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy. That is, if consumers expect prices to continue rising, they ask and demand more compensation from their employers and clients, which leads to increased demand for goods and higher prices.

That said, it is interesting that consumers’ perceptions of how much food prices have increased over the past year is quite a bit lower than the official data on food price increases reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that prices of food at grocery increased 7.4% over the course of the past year (see our handy data dashboard on food price changes); however, the consumers in our survey said, on average, said they thought food prices had increased “only” 5.2% over the past year. Apparently consumers’ aren’t “feeling” inflation as much as the official data suggests. This may be a result of the fact that consumers can adjust to higher prices in a variety of ways by, for example, substituting to lower price alternatives or shopping on sale or at discount retailers.

When we directly asked consumers how they were responding to increased food prices, the most common answer (selected by 31% of respondents), was that they had made little to no change in their shopping habits, which suggests wage and income growth, coupled with savings, have not led to major shifts in consumers’ buying habits. The second most common answer, selected by 24% of respondents, was that they sought out more sales and discounts. Fewer than 1 in 10 said they searched for better prices online or spent less on other goods to maintain food consumption.

Through another ad-hoc question, we delved into mandatory GMO labeling. As of January 1st, 2022, certain foods that are genetically modified in a way that is not possible through conventional breeding are required to disclose that they are “bioengineered” or “contains a bioengineered ingredient.” Food companies can choose how they wish to disclose – either via a new symbol/label on the food product, through text on the food package, or through a QR code or phone number on a food package.

Given the newness of this policy, we were curious how food companies were responding and whether consumers were aware of the new disclosure requirements. Over two-thirds of respondents indicated that they have not seen the bioengineered label on food packages. Of that group, 87% had never seen the labels before, with the remaining 13% being familiar with the label but not yet encountering it in the store. Only 19% of consumers were sure they had seen the label in the store. Of this group, only 37% said they always check for it when shopping.