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15 February 2008
Hong Kong
Despite a growing concern for environment protection and climate change, a shop’s environmental friendliness is yet to have much influence on consumers as they determine where to spend their grocery dollars, instead Good Value for Money remains the number-one influencer, according to the global food packaging survey conducted by The Nielsen Company.
Conducted in mid 2007, the study surveyed over 26,000 internet users in 47 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East, on the factors that influenced their choice of grocery store.
As the findings reveal, Environmental Friendly is the least important consideration among others like price, product quality, convenience and location as consumers determine where to do their grocery shopping. World consumers (28%) who ranked stores that are environmental friendly in using recycle bags/package the most important consideration for their grocery store choice presenting a major contrast to the predominant 85 percent who see Good Value for Money the number one influencer in their grocery store choice instead.
“Despite stronger voices for shops to be environmental friendly in conducting their business, our survey found that more education is required to convince consumers to take this as a priority,” commented Jodi Coker, Director, Retailer Service, The Nielsen Company. “It’s interesting though to see that of the 10 countries where consumers are most supportive for shops being environmental friendly, seven hailed from Asia Pacific.”
In Asia Pacific, China and India lead the region with a respective 39 percent of people who consider environmental friendly a major consideration for their store choice, followed by 35 percent in the Philippines. At 28 percent, Hong Kong people’s attitude is in line with the global average but behind its Asian counterparts in Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand – something certainly needs to be ‘worked on’.
Table 1
“Good value for money is no doubt a pre-dominant consideration for consumers in most countries as they choose where to spend their grocery dollars while there is a long way to go to convince consumers to take ‘environmental friendly’ as a high priority, besides promoting the use of recycle bags,” added Ms Coker.
Trading aspects of packaging for a better environment
Nielsen’s survey further gauge consumers’ attitude toward environmental friendly in their shopping decisions and what aspects of packaging they would be prepared to give up if it meant that it would benefit the environment.
Globally nearly half of world consumers are willing to give up packaging in shape that enable to stack or store at home easier (49%), packaging that enables them to keep as a resealable container (48%) and packaging that means easier to carry home (47%) if it meant benefits to the environment. On the other end of the scale, consumers are less willing to give up packaging that would affect the hygiene (27%) and condition (30%) of the products.
Preferences of consumers in Asia Pacific are generally in line with the global average. Specifically, New Zealanders and Australians lead the region with most people willing to give up the convenience in packaging for the purpose of easy storage and for easy of carrying home if it would benefit the environment.
Table 2
Table 3
In Hong Kong, people are most willing to give up packaging in shape that makes it easier to store (50%) and to carry (49%) and their willingness to trade for a better environment drops when it comes to packaging information like cooking and usage instructions (30%), packaging to keep products in a better conditions (30%) and hygiene (15%) etc.
“Cultural attitudes towards food and shopping habits are a big influencer of packaging preferences and we see a distinct contrast between East and West attitudes,” observed Ms. Coker. “Asian shoppers also placed less priority on packaging that preserves food – perhaps because they shop frequently and don’t tend to buy products with a long shelf life.”
According to The Nielsen ShopperTrends study, Asian consumers place a high priority on fresh food – 90 percent of urban Asian shoppers go to the Wet Markets to buy their main Fresh Food and shop as often as 10 times a month at traditional grocery stores, comparing to only six times a month in Europe. In Hong Kong, people visit the wet market as frequent as 17 times per month and the supermarket /superstore /tradition grocery store 22 times a month .
While packaging that would affect the hygiene and condition of products are the least willing-to-give up options for consumers, people in Vietnam are desperate enough to lead the pack with half of consumers willing to give up these aspects of the packaging in return for a better environment. People in Taiwan and Hong Kong are the least willing in the region to give up packaging for the hygiene of products despite benefits to the environment.
Table 5
“As global concern and awareness about the need to preserve the environment increases, consumers around the world are demanding greater responsibility from retailers and FMCG manufacturers. And while eco-friendly packaging might not be the top priority for shoppers today, it’s certainly a growing consumer demand the food industry cannot ignore,” said Ms. Coker.
47 Markets Covered
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czechs Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, US and Vietnam.
About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (Nielsen Online and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com
www.nielsen.com.
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