Ipsos Reid in collaboration with the George Morris Centre is surveying Canadian consumers to identify opportunities for livestock producers to form beneficial working relationships with processors, packers and retailers.

The project entitled "consumer data for farmers" involves four commodities, chicken, pork, lamb and veal.

Ipsos Reid associate vice president Colin Siren explains the market research portion of the project contains two components.

Colin Siren-Ipsos Reid

The first component is a diary study and what that is is we have a panel of Canadian consumers who record all of their household purchases each month into a diary and we then tabulate those results and analyze them.

And basically we're looking at understanding where consumers are purchasing their lamb, chicken, pork, veal, what types of value added are they purchasing?

Is it breaded, seasoned, boneless, etceteras, how much they're paying per kilo and essentially understanding what channels they're shopping through.

Is it through a grocery store, through the farmgate etceteras.

The second component is a usage and attitude study that we are conducting with a different panel, this being our on line consumer panel, and what we did was we interviewed 3,200 consumers to understand what factors influence their decision making process when they're buying their lamb, chicken, pork or veal at home or at the restaurant, how do situational factors such as the type of dining occasion influence the types of meats they buy and what are the main reasons why they buy what they buy.

Siren reports, while consumption patterns vary, overall consumers are very satisfied with the meats that are available to them in Canada.

However he notes there are opportunities for improvement for each of commodities and the George Morris Centre is now working with these groups to develop strategies that will help them make the most of the survey results.