The Importance of Knowing Consumers and their Food Consumption

By Harry Siemens

Dr. Ellen Goddard, a past cooperative chair in agricultural marketing and business at the University of Alberta said there is no one simple answer to what producers need to know about food and consumers.

At the Manitoba Swine Seminar in February Dr. Goddard pointed out that, “You have to keep your eye on evolving movements and remember that consumers are not one group.”

Consumers in Canada in different age groups respond very differently to each issue. Consumers in other countries, in different cultures respond very differently to the same the things that necessarily receive the most extensive press, like plantbased substitutes, because that’s different from where the most significant challenges are.

When asked where those challenges come from, such as concerns about how producers raise animals.

Dr. Goddard said that producers and the entire industry must communicate, “Why we do things. I refer to another talk focused on managing your animals in a low-stress environment; that is such a positive message for the public.”

Goddard re-tweets farmers who show and tweet how healthy and happy their cattle and other animals are.

She said, those messages resonate with the public, especially if they come from farmers. Farmers need to know when a sudden a concern such as animal welfare is growing in importance and why it is growing in importance.

For example, suppose the Chinese consuming public becomes concerned about animal welfare, even though China will be proportionally more self-sufficient in pork once they’ve stopped the spread of African Swine Fever. In that case, that will apply to all pork not raised in China.

“It will apply to all pork in the grocery store, and Canada is pretty dependent on that market, so we need to keep monitoring,” said Dr. Goddard.

Her current research includes consumer and behavioural research with farmers, outfitters, veterinarians and firms in the food supply chains. She also believes the consumption of pork and meat will be around for a while.

“Largely because we’re still protein deficit, pork is a better converter into protein than some other animals,” she said. “Beef will never disappear anytime soon, but chicken meat will grow in importance as part of the meat component.”

Goddard said the consumer’s pretty fascinating. She stressed, “Please refrain from assuming that because articles in the newspaper are talking about the economics of the meat industry, they necessarily capture all the variety in consumer attitudes.”

“But consumers ultimately are who we produce for, so we can’t forget them or assume somebody else is dealing with them either because, as farmers, we probably have a bigger stake than even processors and retailers do in making sure that our product appears as healthy, nutritious, cost-efficient, and tasty,” said Dr. Goddard.