Market Research Helps Livestock Industry Better Meet Consumer Demands

CANADA - Research being conducted on behalf of four Canadian livestock commodity groups is providing producers, processors and retailers information to help them take advantage of opportunities to meet consumer demands in the market place, writes Bruce Cochrane.
calendar icon 8 January 2008
clock icon 3 minute read

The George Morris Centre in partnership with Ipsos Reid Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Pork Council, Chicken Farmers of Canada, the Canadian Sheep Federation, and the Ontario Veal Association is gathering consumer information on food purchases from 45 hundred Canadian households and tracking the attitudes of another 32 hundred consumers through a web based survey.

George Morris Centre senior research associate Martin Gooch says the goal is to provide information on food consumption trends and that will help the agri-food industry take advantage of available marketing opportunities.

Martin Gooch-George Morris Centre

The market place is getting increasingly competitive.

We're competing against low cost imports, we're competing against a rapidly changing consumer of which little information is known and, unless you understand what is driving consumer purchase and how the market is changing, you are always going to be in a situation where you are going to rely on someone else to add value or adapt, modify what you are producing to better suit market requirements so you're always going to be in a trailing position.

Many farmers don't have a formal marketing plan and having a plan, understanding where you need to go to capture an opportunittuy and therefor essentially work from a market oriented position will always bring you the opportunittiy to be more successful than if you're working insolation.


Gooch notes information is being collected on what types of products consumers buy, from where, what day of the week they buy, at what price, whether it's through special promotion, and wether products are value added to draw a detailed picture of Canadian consumption patterns.

He says the number crunching will begin this coming March and the project is due to be competetd in March of 2009.

Further Reading

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