The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) Foundation today launched a new approach to address emerging issues in the food, agricultural and consumer goods sectors. FMI Foundation established the cross-industry communications effort, the Unified Voice Protocol, with the goal of proactively creating an environment of trust and consumer confidence in purchase decisions.FMI partnered with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the Animal Agriculture Alliance to develop and fund the first pilot project, which considered sustainability-related poultry production practices with a focus on cage-free eggs and slow-growth broilers.
“It is important to understand the drivers for consumers’ decisions in the marketplace,” said Leslie Sarasin, president of the FMI Foundation and president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute. “This pilot project is a positive first step in helping ensure the food and agricultural industry is responding to actual consumer preferences and furthers FMI’s role and responsibility to serve as the voice of the food retail industry.”
Dr. Jayson Lusk, Ph.D., food and agricultural economist at Purdue University, conducted the research for the pilot project and examined consumer beliefs, knowledge and willingness-to-pay for specific attributes, such as cage-free eggs and slow-growth broilers. Dr. Lusk’s research team surveyed more than 3,000 respondents who were asked to make a series of choices among products that vary in price, production practices, labeling claims, product color and appearance.