Consumers Seek More of Their Food's Story

Have you heard the term Credence Attributes? Well, it is those things that when a consumer picks up a product in the meat case she can't determine with the naked eye. Leann Saunders of the verification company Where Food Comes From Inc. shares more about consumers are interested in learning

Saunders: "So it moves beyond price, and packaging and color of product to things like how are the animals treated, what was the environmental impact, so all of those questions that consumers have today about how their food was grown and how it gets to them."

                               

This increased consumer interest in their food's full story provides marketing opportunities for beef producers as Saunders continues

Saunders : "The great opportunity we have in the beef industry is consumers want choices and they want transparency and they want information. So there isn't one size fits all. So that provides great opportunity for each producer to really look and see what do I want to do."

 

Continually keeping the consumer and their desires in mind is important.

Saunders: "It's absolutely critical today that as we are producing product at different segments in the supply chain — so if I'm cow-calf producer that I'm always thinking about the demands of the end-consumer. Because we are segmented supply chain, we have to know what they want in order to deliver because they don't have to buy our product, they can buy other products. So it is really important to be focused on their wants and their needs and how they change over time."