It is widely accepted that today’s consumers want to know where their food comes from. More specifically, there currently is an emphasis on ethically produced food and what consumers are demanding is transparency on the part of food producers to demonstrate ethical production.
Ethics is important because food has become a social platform. It has become a means of defining one’s personal values. Ethical people (or, at least those who wish to portray that as a personal value) want to eat ethical food.
There is, however, an imbalance in that it is consumers who reserve the right to define ethics. In particular, consumers who are defined as socially conscious are at the forefront of the demand for transparency.
A checkoff-funded study called the Consumer Image Index established a benchmark on public perceptions of beef and beef production as called for in the Industry-Wide Long Range Plan as well as identified and defined the socially conscious consumer.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Beef Issues Quarterly