Sustainable Groceries Survey: Shoppers Looking for Practical Items

Sustainability is a growing concern for grocery shoppers, according to a report from Sustainable Brands. There are plenty of different stores and brands that offer sustainable grocery and food options. And there are also many different types of sustainability factors and labels for consumers to consider when making their buying decisions. So how many grocery shoppers actually factor in sustainability when making their food purchases? We asked 1,000 respondents about their thoughts on sustainability when it comes to grocery shopping.

Sustainable Groceries

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest online survey, 9% of respondents said that they only ever buy grocery items if they consider those items to be sustainable. 25% said that they buy sustainable grocery items most of the time. 39% do so about half the time. 17% said they rarely ever purchase sustainable grocery items. Just 2% never do. And the remaining 9% were unsure. Seventh Generation, Honest, Kashi, Nature Valley, Amy’s and Clif were some of the most popular grocery brands among consumers who purchase sustainable food items.

Buying Factors

When considering those sustainable grocery purchases, 76% of shoppers said that they are most likely to look for items that are made with natural ingredients. 59% look for grocery products that are labeled as organic. 41% look for products that are grass-fed or free range. 30% care about purchasing fair trade products. 20% look for sustainable products that are gluten free. And 19% look for grocery items that are vegetarian or vegan.

Future Purchases

Looking forward, 61% of respondents said that they are at least somewhat likely to factor sustainability into their grocery buying decisions within the next year. According to Personality Radar, those who are likely to care about buying sustainable groceries are seem to also be interested in other types of practical purchases. So that could suggest that many of them are looking for items that offer value and serve practical purposes, rather than those that are trendy or fashionable.

Key Takeaways

Sustainability has been and looks like it will continue to be a major factor for a lot of grocery shoppers. But it seems as though it’s not growing due to trendiness, but instead due to practical shoppers looking for quality items for their families. So for the stores and brands that sell organic, natural or otherwise sustainable grocery products, aiming messaging at families and other price and value conscious consumers could be a useful strategy. And calling attention to natural ingredients is another way to really appeal to shoppers that care about buying sustainable items. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: $100 of vegan groceries by Lisa Brewster under CC BY-SA 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on January 29-30 via AYTM’s online survey panel.