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UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER TRENDS
The simple motivator of quality and price is all about guilt-free choice: “I don’t want to make the wrong choice, but I want the right choice easy to recognise.” Put simply, the average consumer seeks guilt-free choices, delivered by a guilt-free food system. Being noticed and being liked is about putting creative products in front of consumers. People the world over don’t want more choice, they just want better products. The powerful and very profitable message for farmers is that consumers already trust you to do this. What’s required now is farmer influence moving beyond the farm gate and further down the food system. Unfortunately, the word ‘farmer’ has been hijacked and exploited by everyone who sells food. There is a solution – but it requires farmers changing how they view their place in Australia’s food system. Not often used to great effect in Australia, value chain thinking is a profit-based approach to lifting the performance of farms in food supply chains. Value chains allow the flow of market information to reach those who have a vested interest in planning and profiting from consumer trends. Value chain thinking is a catalyst for farmers to change their business model and involve themselves in the food transformation process. An example of improving farmer involvement in the downstream food system is Dunnhumby which, in collaboration with the University of Kent, undertook a major project to identify consumer trends via supermarket chain Tesco’s Club Card, and used this information to help farmers and food producers understand important market insights. There are various stages of food transformation such as highly transformed or partially transformed products.
Farmers transforming their stake in the market PANGKARRA FOODS The Maitland family runs a mixed broad acre cropping enterprise in the Mid North of South Australia. Durum grain is grown and stored on the property using sustainable farming practices and organic fertilisers. Wholegrain pasta is made from durum flour produced using traditional stone milling methods. Pangkarra Foods is a farmer-owned and -operated national food business, with a range of wholegrain products including pasta, lavosh, flour and grissini supplied direct to food retailers. AUSTRALIAN CAROB COMPANY The Jolley family runs a carob orchard of 6,000 trees in the Mid North of South Australia. The property uses sustainable farming practices and zero chemicals. When the carob beans are harvested, they are processed on the farm using state-ofthe-art equipment including kibbling, roasting and milling. Australian Carob is a farmer-owned and -operated food business suppling unique products to health food shops and supermarkets in Australia and also exporting throughout the world.
