What do consumers think about climate affected produce
The University of WA published their findings early this year in the Food Quality and Preference Journal, investigating the factors that motivate and discourage consumers from considering climate-affected fresh horticultural produce, in this case apples.
Also this research is summarised in a Conversation paper to convert it into key findings link - https://theconversation.com/climate-affected-produce-is-here-to-stay-heres-what-it-takes-for-consumers-to-embrace-it-248776).
“UWA is now taking the project to the next stage and is interested in talking to farmers who may have affected produce that they could purchase or use for consumer tasting and developing recipes to further test the effect on consumers. Please get in touch with Nardia below if you are interested in taking part.”
The key insights are:
When an apple’s firmness, size and aesthetics were important and empathy towards farmers was low, consumers tended to avoid climate-affected produce. In this case consumers chose unaffected alternatives at higher prices. Because past “odd bunch” and “ugly food” campaigns emphasised the unaffected taste and texture of such produce, this could pose a challenge to encourage consumers to purchase climate-affected produce.
When price was essential to consumers, they chose climate-affected produce, regardless of their empathy toward farmers, but they were only willing to pay discounted prices for it. In this case, consumer expectations that climate-affected produce should be discounted may disadvantage farmers with lower profit margins and diminish the value of this still-usable food.
When the “resilience” message resonated with consumers (“Resilient apple – survived the drought”), they were more inclined to consider climate-affected apples. This was true even when their empathy towards farmers was low.
UWA is now taking the project to the next stage and is interested in talking to farmers who may have affected produce that we could purchase or use for consumer tasting and developing recipes to test the effect on consumers further. Please get in touch with Nardia below if you are interested in taking part.