Defra

Stated preference of consumers

Food types consumers make a point of purchasing (prompted question)

This indicator is currently in development. Further development of data sources and methodology is needed to allow a comparative analysis between the stated preference of consumers and the purchases which consumers make.

Public opinions are a complex response to perceptions, previous knowledge and influences such as media reporting. However, these opinions provide a backdrop to the environment that the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy is operating within and reflect widest stakeholder attitudes.

The sampling strategy ensures that the results are robust at a country level and are designed to be representative of the country’s population. For the Defra Public Tracking Survey, the sample size was 1,085 in 2006.

The question used within this indicator is a prompted response in that the respondent is given a list of types of food and asked to specify whether they would buy it, if possible. This type of question is likely to lead to over reporting on willingness to pay for added benefits, although provides an indicator of consumers' ranking of preferences.

• The respondents were asked to state which of the prompted food types they would make a point of buying where available
• The prompted list included both livestock sector and non livestock sector purchasing behaviour, allowing relative ranking to be made. Livestock related categories are shown in orange
• Overall, when prompted, consumers stated a preference for buying British food above all other categories
• The highest rated livestock category was free range eggs. This was stated by 77% of respondents as being a preferred option. Core indicator 5.1 examines egg production in more detail. The current throughput of packing stations suggests that free range eggs made up 30% of throughput in GB during 2005, although the data from packing stations includes eggs for processing, whereas respondents to the survey are only likely to consider eggs in shell
• Free range meat was mentioned by 57% of respondents as being a product which they purchased when given the opportunity. Welfare labelling was mentioned by 45% of respondents. This was very similar to the number of those respondents which looked to purchase supermarket economy ranges (47%)
• Organic meat was mentioned by 37% of respondents. This is considerably lower than organic vegetables at 50%. The soil association mark was stated by 35% of respondents. The variety of labelling surrounding organic produce may lead to this fragmented approach