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02.10.2005

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For more Hartman Group articles on SHOPPER INSIGHTS, click here...

February 03, 2005 "What Is 'Home Experience'?"

January 06, 2005 "5 Myths in Consumer Shopping Behavior"

October 14, 2004 "8 Common Blunders in Consumer Insights"

March 15, 2004 "Luxury Consumption"- Part I

December 27, 2002 "Re-Thinking Our Traditional Notion of the Mass Marketplace: The Emergence of a New Paradigm"

June 28, 2002 "Experience, Expectation & the Shopping Trip"

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Packaged Vs. Fresh...and Center Store Migration

Packaged and processed foods rose to prominence during the mid to latter half of the 20th century. Attempting to deliver on modernity's great promise of convenience, reliability and, most notably, affordability, manufacturers skillfully engineered packaged and processed versions (frozen, packaged, dehydrated, dried, canned, preserved, pre-cooked etc.) of what were traditionally known simply as "foods" to meet the needs of a post-war, mass-market consumer audience. While consumers responded (more or less) in kind, the unexpected byproduct of these developments was that such foods became symbolically linked to the very logics that made their convenience possible - predictability, uniformity, homogeneity and the like.

Jumping forward 40 to 50 years, we observe a single, overarching theme encompassing the vast cultural shift in the food world. Namely, the pursuit of all things real - expressed here primarily through cultural distinctions of "fresh." Aware as we have become of the (perceived) mediocrity and/or predictability of processed or packaged products, consumers consistently turn to so-called "fresh" counterparts in pursuit of a healthier, tastier, more interesting or more distinguished way of life. This does not mean consumers have abandoned processed or packaged foods, merely that (a) they see the distinction between packaged/processed and fresh as the most salient cultural distinction in the food world, that (b) such distinctions are often seen as indicators of quality, healthfulness and taste, and that (c) such a distinction often affects consumer shopping behavior in critical directions.

It is important to understand that fresh is not so much an objective distinction (as in the difference between fresh fruit and canned fruit) as it is a multi-faceted framing device that allows consumers to differentiate between the real and the imitation, the raw and the processed, the tasty and the bland, the ripe and the stale, the good and the bad, the fancy and plain, and so forth. Consumers are attracted to fresh products for a variety of reasons (taste, quality, healthfulness, status, ideology etc.), all attributable to the fact that the product in question is not "one of those products," the processed or packaged versions of the "real thing."

Likewise, the cues that signal "fresh" to consumers may often have little to do with objective understandings of fresh. Our research suggests, for example, that the most important "fresh" cues for consumers usually have much, much more to do with the product's packaging, refrigeration and location within the store than, say, the taste or texture of the product. To cite but one example, we found that consumer interest in, as well as taste impressions of, certain juice brands rose considerably merely by moving the juices from dairy to produce. There is simply something about encountering juices in the produce department that makes them seem fresher - and, by proxy, tastier and healthier.

First, we know that consumers perceive products with minimal packaging to generally be "the freshest." If significant packaging is a must, the next best option is clear or see-through packaging. While consumers no longer perceive these products as fresh per se, they suggest heightened fresh perceptions based on their ability to visually inspect and "see" the product.

Second, we find that products in refrigerated sections always score high marks in terms of freshness perceptions, the operative logic being that refrigerated areas are reserved for the most perishable of products - those products that don't adapt well to freezing and are too fragile to merely display on the store floor (such as cheese). Research here, for example, indicates that consumers think shelf-stable soymilks displayed in refrigerated cases to be "significantly fresher" and "higher in quality" than their identical counterparts in non-refrigerated center store.

Finally, we believe the historical tendency in grocery retail to locate key "fresh" departments (e.g., dairy, meat, seafood, bakery) on the perimeter of the store (ostensibly because the physical connections to "backstage" areas made them easier to staff and service) has also had a lasting effect on consumers' shopping habits. As irrational as it may seem, fresh-interested consumers accustomed to floating around the perimeter of the store to patronize departments such as meats and seafood now tend to ascribe higher freshness perceptions to products located in these areas, regardless of the objective reality. Of course, location alone is not sufficient to drive markedly higher fresh perceptions. Simply locating packaged cookies on an end-cap near the bakery will do little to drive fresh perceptions. On the other hand, our evidence suggests that additional fresh cues in the form of (a) repackaging these same cookies in a clear plastic container and (b) building a display of the resulting containers on a table next to store-baked cookies will drive fresh perceptions considerably.

When we combine the historical features of grocery retail (described above) with more recent consumer preoccupations with fresh, and factor in the reflective effect of contemporary retail responses to this trend, we find powerful evidence that the grocery perimeter has become a "sacred space" for products in search of heightened quality, health and taste perceptions - all operating through consumer ideas of fresh. This, we believe, is likewise responsible for the powerful, and we believe permanent, migration of consumers away from center store toward the perimeter of most food-based retail channels.

And more importantly, if this sacred space is not handled with the verve of a fresh expert, this migration could continue out the door to another retailer who's doing it right.

For more shopper insights, see The Hartman Group's latest study,
Shopper Insights: How Cultural Occasions Frame the Consumer Experience.

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