FMCG | Retail | Sustainability | Tobin Sparrow
It is hard to avoid the news confronting us of the environmental impact of our shopping behaviour. Wales set to ban single-use plastic bags and wet wipes that contain plastic whilst retailers across the UK are removing best-before dates from a huge range of products to combat food waste. But for brands to make meaningful changes they need to engage with consumers so we spoke with over 900 supermarket shoppers to see what this concept really meant to them.
It is easy when you are in the business of talking about brands and shopper behaviour all day to make some assumptions about what people think and what’s important to them. But it is good to test those assumptions… One hot topic for most of our clients has been sustainability, so in July @marketmeasures interviewed over 900 supermarket shoppers to see what this concept really meant to them.
Firstly, there is no single factor that marks a grocery brand as being sustainable.
The most important was 100% recyclable packaging – 46% of people stated this as one of their top 3 markers of sustainability. Locally sourced (37%) and responsibility sourced ingredients (37%) rounded out the top 3. But that means that no single factor of the 17 offered had more than 50% of people put it as a part of their top 3.
At the opposite end of the scale being a classified B Corp or using sustainable palm oil ranked as the least important with only 6% and 9% respectively. Sustainable palm oil has clocked up a lot of media time, and while for that 9% it is clearly important, when placed against other factors it drops down the decision-making hierarchy.
Secondly, given the cost-of-living crisis, it is perhaps unsurprising that price is still the most important thing when considering what brand to buy.
And out of all 11 consideration factors that we asked only a brand being organic was ranked lower than being sustainable. It is a tough time for shoppers right now but that does not mean they have stopped caring about the environment; 31% of people said that the environment was still a priority which given the current economic and political climate is quite telling. But, only 9% of people would expect to pay more for a sustainable product, sustainability should simply be a gift that does not impact a shopper’s wallet.
There is no single route to communicating the sustainability credentials of your brand. There are, however, ways to understand what the best message is for specific consumer groups. Demographic cohorts, although unnuanced, do offer some examples of how you might tailor a sustainable message to attract a specific shopper group:
• GenZ shoppers are more likely to look for Rainforest Alliance certification compared to the average (19% : 9%)
• Middle-income households are more inclined toward Organic ingredients when establishing sustainability credentials (19% : 13%)
• Households with Primary school aged children are three times as likely to see a B Corp classification as a marker of sustainability (12% : 4%)
So… do you really know what the right sustainability measure is for your consumer? When did you last ask them?