Accidental Research

As noted on page 12, the American Frozen Food Institute is leading a campaign to oppose new country of origin marking regulations, and has made available an extensive paper detailing the regulations' effects on its web site. AFPI was kind enough to provide us media types with hard copies of that paper

That something has nothing to do with the country of origin regulations. It's a piece of what I call "accidental research": something you find out while looking for something else. In this case, AFFI was trying to determine if consumers gave a hoot about the country that their frozen produce came from. The answer to that question is no; fewer than 1% of those surveyed said country of origin influenced their frozen produce purchases. That was the same figure AFFI got in a similar survey done in 1996.

The other end of the scale, however, tells a startling story. Back in 1996, the three top factors influencing frozen produce purchases were price, brand, and taste, in that order. Moreover, price was far and away the top motivating factor, cited by about 37% of those surveyed. The No. 2 factor, brand, was named by 21%, and No. 3 taste by about 18%.

In the survey done this year, the top factors were price, taste, brand, in that order. And No. 1 price was far less dominant, named by about 26% of those surveyed. No. 2 taste again came in at 18%, No. 3 brand at 16%. Note further that not only was price far less dominant, but the gap between it and the No. 2 factor was only half as large as in 1996.

That's all the more amazing given that the economy was ticking along pretty nicely in 1996, while here in 2003 we seem mired in a low-growth rut.

This piece of accidental research tells me that frozen produce suppliers have done an incredible job over the last seven years. All the value-added vegetables in sauce and new medleys and bagged vegetables with sauce chips and everything else has obviously paid off in the consumers' mind. They're now focusing on taste and not price. Memo to the veggie folks: great job.