"Safety" is one of the most basic factors driving consumer behaviors about buying and eating food. Consumer awareness of food safety issues is high, exceeding 50% in many different categories. Consumers implicitly think about food safety when they choose where they shop for food, the packaging they’ll accept for food, where they dine and how they prepare food at home. But safety rarely gets the focus it deserves from manufacturers, retailers and food service providers—until there’s a problem ..

Yet, understanding and addressing consumer attitudes about food safety needn't be a defensive activity. And if handled smartly and strategically, responding to underlying food safety worries can clearly offer the food industry a profitable opportunity.

Understanding Consumer Attitudes About Food Safety: How Food Manufacturers, Retailers and the Foodservice Industry Can Build Consumer Trust is a ground-breaking, in-depth examination of consumers' food safety and wellness concerns. Drawing on more than 6 months of primary, proprietary research that involved more than 300 U.S. consumers, the report identifies consumer perceptions of food safety issues and concerns for a broad range of grocery categories, retailers, restaurants and in-home dining.

More than 300 consumers participated in this quantitative and qualitative study. Consumers rated foods and food sources for their perceived safeness, provided their awareness and concerns about safety issues, identified the steps they take to avoid foods they perceive to be unsafe and identified the conditions or signs they look for in determining whether food is safe to eat.

Additionally, consumers responded to a battery of over 140 statements, enabling the compilation of the first-ever Attitudinal Segmentation of Food Safety Perceptions and psychographic profiles. Key sub-sample groups include: male vs. female, households with children vs. households without children, primary grocery shoppers, family meal preparers in home, child meal preparers in home, race & ethnic groups, vegetarians, natural food users, organic food buyers, groups with varying commitment to eating "healthfully," and former employees of food service, food manufacture and food retailers.

Understanding Consumer Attitudes About Food Safety: How Food Manufacturers, Retailers and the Foodservice Industry Can Build Consumer Trust offers the food industry first-hand insight into the consumer psyche surrounding safety and offers a unique roadmap to responding to, and benefiting from, these insights.

What you'll get in this report:

• Representative Sample and Key Subgroup Analyses, such as:
  • Demographic breakouts (e.g. gender, age, presence of children)
  • Behavioral breakouts such as meal preparers, buyers, natural food consumers, organic food consumers.
  • Perceived Safety Ratings for more than 25 grocery categories
  • Perceived Safety Ratings for more than 15 retail food venues
  • Perceived Safety Ratings for more than 15 food service venues
  
  
• Awareness, Concern and Steps taken to avoid unsafe food and food sources
• Perspective and Implications for Food Developers and Manufacturers
• Perspective and Implications for Food Retailers
• Perspective and Implications for Food Service Providers
• Food Safety Attitudinal Segmentation
• Easy to read and practical charts, tables and graphs
• A framework to measure the impact of food 'scares' in times of crisis.

Who Should Read This Report and Why:
Food Manufacturing Marketers, R&D and Packaging Professionals: Gain a comprehensive view of the range of food safety issues that concern Americans and learn how consumers compensate to avoid foods and sources of foods they perceive to be unsafe. Obtain practical information that can be used for new product development, packaging and consumer communications.

Food Retailers: Learn which foods are considered safe, and understand the steps that can be taken to improve consumer trust of the foods that are sold at retail, including areas such as store merchandising, communications and operations.

Food Service Providers and Restaurant Operators: Learn which types of operations are considered safe and unsafe, and understand the ways you can improve the perception of food safety in your establishments. Public Relations Professionals and Crisis Managers: Use the study to build a consumer framework for handling food safety issues or crises.

About the Author:
Kelley Styring is the President of InsightFarm, Inc. (www.insightfarm.com), a market research and consumer strategy consultancy that helps leading food, beverage and consumer goods companies drive growth through consumer based innovation and marketing. Prior to founding InsightFarm, she worked for 11 years as a market research manager for Proctor & Gamble and Director of Consumer Strategy and Insight for Frito-Lay, leading the consumer agenda for major brands such as Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Pampers, Ivory and Oil of Olay. She worked for NASA and Black & Decker before becoming a market research professional. Kelley holds an MBA from the University of South Carolina.

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