CONSUMERS UNLIKELY TO BE INFLUENCED BY GROCERY STORES’ ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS

According to a global food packaging survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, a shop’s environmental friendliness is the last consideration for consumers when choosing a grocery store, while Good Value for Money ranks as the number-one influencer of store choice. Environmental Friendliness was the least important factor for consumers among others such as price, product quality, convenience and location, when determining where to shop for groceries. The 28 percent of world consumers who ranked environmentally-friendly stores using recycle bags/package as the most important consideration for their grocery store choice were in major opposition to the predominant 85 percent who considered Good Value for Money the number one influencer in their choice of store. Like the world consumers, 88 percent of Thais voted “Good Value” as the top consideration while 29 percent considered environmentally-friendly stores using recycle bags/package as the last consideration in determining where to spend money. In Asia Pacific, China and India lead the region with 39 percent consumers in each market considering the environment when making their store choice, followed by 35 percent in the Philippines. ( Table 1.1 and Table 1.2) “Despite growing consumer demand for shops to be environmentally friendly in conducting their business, consumers don’t necessarily make this a priority when choosing where to shop,” commented Chantira Luesakul, Managing Director, The Nielsen Company, Thailand “It’s interesting to see that of the 10 countries where consumers are most supportive of shops being environmental friendly, seven hailed from Asia Pacific.” Trading aspects of packaging for a better environment Nielsen’s survey further gauged consumers’ attitudes towards environmental friendliness in their shopping decisions and what aspects of packaging they would be prepared to give up if it meant it would benefit the environment. In Thailand, consumers would be willing to give up packaging that enables them to keep as packs that can be cooked in or kept at home as a resealable container (36%) packaging that means it’s easier to carry home (32%), packaging information, including cooking and usage instructions (29%) and packaging in a shape that enables it to stack or store at home easier (28%) if it meant it would benefit he environment. At the other end of the scale, consumers are less willing to give up packaging that would affect hygiene and condition ( same21%) ( Table 2) In Asia Pacific , New Zealanders and Australians lead the region with most people willing to give up the convenience of packaging for the purpose of easy storage and for easy to carrying home - if it would benefit the environment. Interestingly, environmentally-aware New Zealanders topped global rankings as the nation most prepared to give up all aspects of packaging for the sake of the environment. While packaging that would affect the hygiene and condition of products are the least willing-to-give up options for the world consumers, people in Vietnam are desperate enough to lead the pack with half of consumers willing to give up these aspects of the packaging in return for a better environment. People in Taiwan and Hong Kong are the least willing in the region to give up packaging for the hygiene of products despite benefits to the environment. “Cultural attitudes towards food and shopping habits are a big influencer of packaging preferences and we see a distinct contrast between East and West attitudes,” observed Chantira “Asian shoppers also placed less priority on packaging that preserves food – perhaps because they shop frequently and don’t tend to buy products with a long shelf life.” According to Nielsen ShopperTrends, Asian consumers place a high priority on fresh food – 90 percent of urban Asian shoppers go to Wet Markets to buy their main Fresh Food and shop as often as 10 times a month at traditional grocery stores while European shoppers visit the supermarket/hypermarket/discounters on average only six to eight times a month. In Thailand, consumers shop at Wet Markets 14 times and traditional grocery stores 20 times a month. According to findings from Nielsen packs@work studies in Asia, Japanese consumers claim aesthetics to be a strong driver of pack preference. “As global concern and awareness about the need to preserve the environment increase, consumers around the world are demanding greater responsibility from retailers and FMCG manufacturers. And while eco-friendly packaging might not be the top priority for shoppers today, it’s certainly a growing consumer demand the food industry cannot ignore,” said Chantira The Survey Conducted in mid 2007, Nielsen surveyed 26,486 internet users in 47 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East, on the factors that influenced their choice of grocery store.In Thailand, 500 internet users aged 15 and above were interviewed

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