Australian consumers: A marketer’s perspective

Julie DANGJulie Dang and Associates Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia

KEY POINTS

After 30 years working with consumers, it would seem thata ‘back to basics’ belief system is emerging, this being borneout of:• A genuine concern for the ‘excesses’ of an affluent society.

In a food sense, this translates to: ‘We can have it allwhenever we want it’, no such thing as seasonal, ‘Whygo to the effort of cooking from scratch when you canoutsource it’.

• A concern for the integrity of the foods we eat, fresh inparticular. In essence, how good is the food we are eating,really? How much ‘life’ is in our food? How nutrient-richis the food we buy in reality?

• A concern for the level of preservatives, artificial colour-ings and additives in food to extend its life and enhance itstaste. Indeed, there is a sense that marketers are moreconcerned today with the life of the food than with the lifein the food.

• A concern for the chemicals that find their way into thefood chain (growth hormones, antibiotics, chemical ferti-lisers and pesticides). Mothers worry about the linkbetween chemicals, additives and preservatives and seem-ingly modern-day ‘diseases’, such as attention deficitdisorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; consum-ers generally worry about the possible link to diseasessuch as cancer.

INTRODUCTION

The past two decades has been a time of significant change inthe consumer’s perspective on food—what they eat, howthey eat, and even why they eat. It is a period that hascorresponded with a significant rise in the media focus onfood, feeding the apparently insatiable appetite to knowmore about the (total) food experience. Whether it is aboutbetter understanding the nutritional value of the food we eat,the integrity of the food we eat or the taste adventure thatfood offers, the consumer’s appetite for ‘food and dietarynews’ shows little sign of being sated. Indeed, the consumerradar has become increasingly more sophisticated over thepast two decades, being quick to pick up on issues relatingto the way we eat and its impact on health. There is nodoubting that the rise in consumers’ perceived need to knowmore about the dietary-related issues that impact upon theirhealth and vitality has impacted on the consumption levelsof red meat, leading to a decline that has only turned aroundin more recent times. Based on 30 years of qualitativeresearch associated with the food industry, this review

focuses on observations of consumer trends and the impli-cations for food in the future.

TWO CONSUMER TRENDS

Just how far the consumer’s perspective on, and understand-ing of, food has come can be seen in the emergence of twokey consumer trends over the past two decades. Thesetrends include the significant increase in the understandingof food as a preventative health tool and the increasingconcern for the integrity of the food we eat. The two trendsare linked as consumers understand that ‘you are what youeat’, and that nutritional richness or value is reliant in largepart on eating right and eating well. Whereas 20 years agosuch belief systems would have been considered ‘alternate’(the domain of the avid health food shopper), today theyhave assumed more mainstream proportions, with this beingreflected in such things as the messages that characteriseboth fresh and packaged food today and the places whereconsumers choose to shop for their fresh produce.

The rise in the consumer’s understanding of food as apreventative health tool could be said to have had its originsa few decades ago when the health focus shifted from illnessto wellness and when people took back (from general prac-titioners) responsibility for the management of their health.Food became more than just the daily source of nourish-ment; it became a key source of either good or bad health.Add to this the rise of convenience or processed foods, andwhat we eat began to be increasingly placed under themicroscope. Of interest here are the issues that concernedconsumers in a preventative health tool context, and moreparticularly, the shift in focus that has occurred over the pastdecade. A decade ago saw the consumer being focused onthree key areas—the amount of fat, sugar and salt in our diet.The concern for the amount of fat directly impacted on thestatus of red meat as consumers took an increasingly pro-active approach to what was seen to be (and continues to beseen to be) a major health and dietary issue. Indeed, reduc-tion in fats (or more particularly, animal fats/saturated fats)was the focus for dietary change, with this impacting on suchfundamentals as the level of consumption of that basicstaple, red meat. Consumers understood the health conse-quences of too much saturated fat—weight gain, cholesteroland heart disease—consequences that were too ‘big picture’to ignore.

The past decade has seen a shift in focus from ‘the bad’ to‘the good’, there being a growing consumer consciousnessnot only of the nutrient content that is in the food we eat, butalso of the health benefits to be derived from eating foods

Nutrition & Dietetics 2007; 64 (Suppl. 4): S111–S112 DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-0080.2007.00196.x

© 2007 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2007 Dietitians Association of Australia

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rich in certain vitamins and minerals. Eating well is under-stood to keep us well, with consumers continuing today toinclude foods in their diet that are rich in vitamin B, vitaminC, iron, antioxidants, folate, omega-3s and zinc. They areconcerned for their (and their family’s, in the case of mums)energy levels, the health of their immune system, their brainhealth and their gut health—the micro aspects of goodhealth as well as the macro. They seek to be more informedabout the foods they eat, not just about its nutrient content,but also about what this means in a (health) benefit-relatedsense. They seek to be more informed about the nutrientsource, what foods are naturally rich in certain nutrients, andwhat foods can deliver the nutrient level to shore up generalwellness. Today’s consumer is both receptive and responsiveto ‘new news’ on the nutrient front, as evidenced by howquickly nutrient-related (or functional food, foodaceuticals)‘stories’ are mainstreamed. But it is more than becomingmore sophisticated in their dietary understanding. Consum-ers had also become more aware that they were not alwaysdoing things right. One only had to ‘listen’ to one’s body (thelanguage of craving), and observe the rise in obesity, the risein behavioural issues (‘modern day’ diseases, such as atten-tion deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder),and the increase in such disease states as diabetes to knowthat something was wrong.

With so many food choices, so much convenience foodpresented to the consumer with any number of nutritionalclaims (‘low in . . .’, ‘with added . . .’, ‘boosted with . . .’),and with a belief that we could supplement whatever wewere lacking in, it has become easy to lose sight of how weshould be eating.

CONCLUSIONS

The ‘back to basics’ notion, as it is expressed by consumers,goes beyond the 90s notion of balance, everything in mod-

eration. Rather, its focus is on ‘turning back the clock’, goingback to how we used to eat before fresh food was tamperedwith (to keep it fresher for longer, to ensure it looks good),before processed convenience foods were so readily avail-able, and before there was a pre-prepared or convenienceoption for almost everything. This means:• Eating food, not ‘junk’. (The consumer is increasingly

aware that ‘junk food’ is an oxymoron. Food is not junkand junk is not food.)

• Eating fresh, not pre-prepared.• Cooking from scratch rather than meal assembling.• Eating seasonally (fruit and vegetables), not all year

round.• Getting vitamins, minerals and nutrients from the natural

source, not the manufactured source.• Eating ‘three’ square meals, not grazing (the pseudonym

for snacking).• Buying true ‘fresh’, not long-life fresh.

Recent reports from industry research organisations ACNeilsen and Roy Morgan document this ‘back to basics’/turnback the clock notion taking effect on shopping habits,manifesting in a move away from buying meat, fruit andvegetables from supermarkets, a move to buying from but-chers and greengrocers, in the growth of growers’ markets, inthe approach to buying bread daily (fresh, without preser-vatives), in being selective about where fish is bought andwhat fish is bought (fresh, avoidance of imports, not frozen),and in the move to free-range and organic options. Thistrend is set to continue to drive a more positive climate forfresh foods such as red meat in the years ahead. If a foodoffers an impressive bundle of essential nutrients ‘from thesource’, then it is well positioned for increasing consumerinterest and purchase.

Julie Dang

© 2007 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2007 Dietitians Association of Australia

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