26.01.06 - Australian Organic Survey Results - back
KEY INSIGHTS FROM AUSTRALIAN ORGANIC CONSUMER REPORT 2005
Nourish Foods Pty Ltd, manufacturer of Whole Kids (Australia’s first
range of organic food just for kids),in conjunction with Metier Consulting, recently conducted one of the most comprehensive research studies into the attitudes and behaviour of over 300 Australian
organic consumers.
The following is an overview of key findings from the Nourish® Australian Organic Consumer Survey conducted during July-September
05.
Who is buying organic?
Demographics are generally poor indicators for identifying the profile of a typical “organic consumer” as many of the motivations
for consuming organic products are independent from demographic variables.
However, the survey found a number of key demographic attributes which are illustrative of Australians currently purchasing organic
products:
• Approximately 73% of Australian organic consumers are aged between 25 and 44, with 42% aged between 30 and 39.
• Education plays an important influence. Over half of all organic consumers have a bachelor degree or higher
qualification, and amongst this group around 19% have
postgraduate qualifications.
• The influence of income, however, is more polarized. Organic consumers come from a wide spectrum of income groups. Around 27% of organic consumers have annual household incomes over
$100,000, yet 35% of organic consumers have annual household incomes between $30,000 and $60,000.
Nourish® also identified three key segments based on how much consumers spend on organic products:
• “Experiential Organic Consumers” – spend on average less than 10% of their weekly grocery shopping on organics.
• “Emerging Organic Consumers” – spend between 11%-50% of weekly grocery on organics.
• “Converted Organic Consumers” – spend over 50% of weekly grocery on organics.
Where are they buying organic?
Of all organic consumers, approximately 42% regularly purchase the majority of their organic products from an organic food store, while
20% prefer supermarkets, 10% use farmers’ markets and 7% mostly shop at health food stores. A further 6% regularly use an online retailer to purchase their organic food and groceries.
Consumers who prefer to shop at organic food stores express a wide range of reasons for doing so, with the most popular being:
• the availability of a wider range of products (60%)
• to support local store owners (58%)
• a sense or feeling of community (54%)
• convenient locations (53%)
Better store atmosphere was also important for 46% of organic food store shoppers, while the same attribute had zero importance for
supermarket shoppers.
For organic consumers who prefer to buy most of their organic food at
supermarkets, there are four main reasons why they prefer this channel:
• buy most of their other groceries there (80%)
• convenient location (57%)
• convenient opening hours (48%)
• cheaper prices (42%)
Why are they buying organic?
The key reasons why consumers buy organic products are:
• better for my health (93% of respondents)
• free from pesticides/herbicides/residues (93%)
• free from growth hormones/antibiotics (87%)
• free from artificial additives/preservatives (85%).
Furthermore, 77% believe that organic is better for the environment, 74% consider organic food tastes better, and 71% think organic food contains more nutrients and vitamins.
Around 79% of Converted Organic Consumers buy organics to support local farmers compared to 52% for Experiential Organic Consumers,
while 76% of Converted Consumers believe it is more ethically and socially responsible to buy organic products compared to only 57% of Experiential Consumers.
Most organic consumers can name their favourite organic
brands, but supermarket “home brands” are not widely purchased.
Around 60% of organic consumers could recall (unaided) at least one
organic brand, while 39% could not think of any. Of those who could mention at least one brand, approximately 37% mentioned six brands (the maximum permitted under the research), and 80% mentioned three brands and 90% named two brands.
Of all organic brands mentioned, Pure Harvest (5.8% of all mentions),
BioNature (5.4%), Parmalat (5.2%) and Spiral (4.1%) were the most popular. Around 2.5% of all mentions were for Coles Organic.
Twenty-eight brands accounted for around 67% of all brand mentions.
Approximately 42% of all organic consumers do not currently purchase
supermarket organic “home brands” (eg, Coles Organic), while 45% rarely or sometimes do, 3% most of the time, and 6% do only if their
usual organic brand is unavailable.
Trust in organic labelling integrity is divided.
Around 27% of organic consumers trust that a product labelled as
“organic” has been made to accepted industry standards, while 32% do not and 34% are unsure. Around 6% did not think about it or did not
know what “organic” meant.
Of those who do not trust organic labels, around 77% always check whether products are labelled as “certified organic", and 16% most of the time. This is in marked contrast to consumers who already trust
organic labels: almost 32% always check if products are certified, while 5% rarely do and a further 5% never check.
Consumers are prepared to pay a premium for organics – but not as much as the industry may think.
Overall, most organic consumers believe current general prices for
organics are around 16% to 50% more than conventional products:
• 37% believe organics have a current price premium of 26%-50%
• 29% believe it is 16%-25%
• 14% think it is 51%-100%
Around 55% of organic consumers believe organics should, in general, be priced only between 6% and 15% more than conventional products. Around 20% of organic consumers believe there should be no
price premium between organic and conventional products, while 37%
think the organic premium should be less than 10%.
Lower prices are the most important incentive to encourage greater consumption of organic products.
Of all organic consumers, around 7% believe they already buy enough organic products and nothing would encourage them to buy more.
However, of those who would be encouraged to buy more, 76% nominated lower prices as the most important incentive, followed by more
conveniently located organic food stores (59%), greater availability of a wide range and variety of organic products (59%), and a single,
national standard to prove what is organic or not (52%).
Convenience is also a strong incentive to encourage greater consumption, and this can be represented in two ways:
more conveniently located organic food stores (59%), and greater availability of organic products in supermarkets (44%).
