Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - Third Year Review

It's hard to believe, but the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) has been conducted every month now for three years.  I've been fortunate to have Susan Murray working with me to make it happen every month and to have funding support from DASNR, the Willard Sparks Endowment, and the USDA NIFA competitive grant program, AFRI.  

We've pulled together a summary of trends in key survey question we've asked for the past three years.

Overall, willingness-to-pay (WTP) for most meat products has been down this year compared to last year, partly reflecting (I suspect) lower overall meat prices.  Here are relative changes in WTP where May 2013=100 for steak, chicken breast, and pork chops.    

Steak WTP

Chicken breast WTP

Pork chop WTP

We also ask people their expectations about increases in prices of beef, pork, and chicken. Here is the trend in future price expectations for beef.  Except for last month, expectations have been lower this year compared to last  (consistent with the fact that retail prices have declined).

Expectations of Future Beef Price Increases

Here is the trend in awareness and concern for the four top concern issues tracked in our survey (May 2015=100).  There was a big spike in awareness of E. Coli in the news in November and December, which coincided with the Chipotle outbreak.  Pay attention to the units on the vertical axes.  As might be expected, awareness of these four items in the news is much more volatile than is concern.

Awareness in the News

Concern

Finally, here are the % of respondents each month who say they are on food stamps, are vegetarian, or say they had food poisoning in the past month.  For comparison purposes, note that USDA data suggests 22.3 million households are on food stamps, and the Census Bureau indicates there are roughly 116 million households in the US, which implies about 19% of households are on food stamps.  

If you want to compare to previous years, check out the First Year and Second Year reviews.

Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - April 2016

The latest edition of the Food Demand Survey is now out.

From the regular tracking portion of the survey:

• Willingness-to-pay for all food products was down this month, with the largest drop occurring for hamburger;
• The was a sizable uptick in consumers' anticipation of price increases for beef, pork, and chicken and a slight reduction in planned purchases of these items;
• Expenditures on food away from home were up about 5%; and
• We added "cancer and meat consumption" to the list of, now, 18 times for which we track awareness and concern.

Three new ad hoc questions were added this month.

The first set of questions was meant as follow-up to a survey Politico recently conducted of "food experts" (I was a participant in their survey).  Politico asked the following question to the experts: "Are the presidential candidates doing a sufficient job in the campaign discussing the future of food policy?" A whopping 97% said "no".  

I posed a related question to the respondents of FooDS.  Rather than just asking about the issue as a stand alone question, I put food an agricultural policy in the context of other issues candidates spend their time talking about.  In particular, participants were asked: “Are the presidential candidates spending too much or too little time discussing each of the following issues?”  

A list of nine issues was provided, which included “food policy” and “agricultural policy.”  Only about 6% of respondents thought too much time was being spent on the two issues.  44% and 46% thought about the right amount of time was being spent on agricultural and food policy, and 50% and 47% thought too little time was spent on agriculture and food, respectively.  

Immigration policy was the only issue for which more respondents thought candidates were spending too much vs. too little time.  Except for food and agricultural policy, the largest fraction of respondents thought the candidates were spending the right amount of time on the other issues.  

Secondly, we asked another question - this time exactly as it was asked in the Politico food-expert survey.  In particular, participants were asked “Should the government’s role in regulating the US food system be more active, less active, or the same?”  Here, our respondents lined up closely with Politico's food experts:  

Over half of the participants (59%) believe that the government should become more active in regulating the US food system, while less than 13% of participants believe the government should be less active in regulating the US food system.  This is consistent with other research that suggests consumers tend to be rather "statist" when it comes to food policy.

Finally, based on a suggestion from Jason Winfree at University of Idaho, who passed along an article about the (sometimes unjustified) negative perceptions of frozen food,  respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a list of nine statements related to the tastiness, affordability, and health of fruits and vegetables that are either fresh, frozen, or canned.  

In terms of taste, fresh rated higher than frozen, which was rated higher than canned.  All three had a mean score above 3, meaning respondents were more likely than not to agree that all three types of fruits and vegetables were tasty.  In terms of affordability, the ranking was exactly reversed with canned being perceived as most affordable and fresh least affordable (although all three were far about the mean of 3, implying most consumers though all three were affordable.  Finally, perceived health lined up almost exactly with perceived tasted: fresh was perceived as healthier than frozen which was perceived healthier than canned.

Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - March 2016

The March 2016 edition of the Food Demand Survey is out.

Some results from the regular tracking portion of the survey:

• Willingness to pay for steak and chicken breast was up; willingness to pay for pork chops and ham was down
• Consumers expectations for beef and pork price increases are markedly lower than was the case a year ago
• There was an increase in awareness and concern for animal welfare issues this month, particularly battery cages; E. coli was less visible in the news this month and less of a concern this month compared to last.
•  

A few new ad hoc questions were added this month.  

First, all respondents were asked the question, “Compared to five years ago, would you say you are spending more or less time engaged in the following activities during a typical day?”  Individuals were presented with seven categories ranging from about 45 minutes less to about 45 minutes more.  Overall, respondents reported spending more time shopping for food and eating at home.  About the same amount of time reported being spent on cleaning dishes and on cooking.  Slightly less time was reported spent watching TV and reading about food.  Less time was reportedly spent eating away from home.

Second, one group of respondents was directly asked three questions for which there might be some sensitivity regarding the answer or where there might be social pressure to respond in particular ways.  The direct questions were: 1) “Last week did you buy organic food?”, “Last week, did you use a SNAP EBT card?”, and “Last week, did you receive food assistance from a charitable organization like a food pantry, free community meal, or some other free grocery program?”

As the following figure shows, when directly asked, the percent of respondents affirmatively answering these questions was 43%, 13%, and 7% respectively.  

The other groups of respondents were asked these questions in an indirect fashion.  In particular, we used an approach called a “list experiment”, which has been used in political polling for years.  The approach asks people to indicate HOW MANY of a list of items relate to the respondent (not which one).  This question is asked to a control group, and then a treatment group receives the exact same list plus one additional sensitive (or controversial) issue.  By comparing how many items the respondent indicates in the treatment relative to the control, one can back out the aggregate percent of respondents to whom the additional issue applies.  The essence of the approach is that people don’t have to actually tell you whether each issue corresponds to them, and thus it removes the potential for social desirability influencing respondents.

In the control group, respondents were asked, “Below are three activities; How many of the following things did you do last week?   Went to a movie, Ate spaghetti,  Bought toothpaste.” The treatment groups were the same except we added an additional fourth item, either “bought organic food”, “used a SNAP EBT card” or “Receive food assistance from a charitable organization like a food pantry, free community meal, or some other free grocery program?”   

As the figure shows, the degree of affirmation inferred from the indirect question was lower for all three issues, particularly for organic food.  The result suggests that respondents might face social pressure to indicate more support for organic food than they actually have, as the percent who said they purchased organic fell from 43% to just 11%.  However, the results related to SNAP and charitable assistance are opposite of what was expected in that one might expect respondents to under-report these activities when directly asked if in fact respondents were remiss to reveal such information.

Consumer Uncertainty about GMOs and Climate Change

A lot of the debate and discussion surrounding public policies toward controversial food and agricultural issues like GMOs or climate change revolves around public sentiment.  We ask people survey questions like "Do you support mandatory labeling of GMOs?"  However, as I've pointed out, consumers may not even want to have to make this sort of decision; they would prefer to defer to experts.  Thus, we're presuming a level of understanding and interest that consumers may not actually have.  This is related to the recent discussion started by Tamar Haspel in the Washington Post about whether the so-called food movement is large or small.  Are "regular" people actually paying much attention to this food stuff that occupies the attention of so many journalists, researchers, writers, and non-profits?

I had these thoughts in mind as I went back and looked at this post by Dan Kahan who took issue with Pew's survey on public opinions about GMOs (this was the survey that attracted a lot of attention because it showed a large gap in public and scientific opinion on GMOs).  Kahan wrote:

“the misimpression that GM foods are a matter of general public concern exists mainly among people who inhabit these domains, & is fueled both by the vulnerability of those inside them to generalize inappropriately from their own limited experience and by the echo-chamber quality of these enclaves of thought.”

and

“That people are answering questions in a manner that doesn’t correspond to reality shows that the survey questions themselves are invalid. They are not measuring what people in the world think—b/c people in the world (i.e., United States) aren’t thinking anything at all about GM foods; they are just eating them.

The only things the questions are measuring—the only thing they are modeling—is how people react to being asked questions they don’t understand. ”

This let me to think: what if we asked people whether they even wanted to express an opinion about GMOs?  So, in the latest issue of my Food Demand Survey (FooDS) that went out last week, I did just that.  I took my sample of over 1,000 respondents and split them in half.  For half of the sample, I first asked, "Do you have an opinion about the safety of eating genetically modified food?"  Then, only for people who said "yes", I posed the following: "Do you think it is generally safe or unsafe to eat genetically modified foods?" For the other half of the sample, I just asked the latter question about safety beliefs and added the option of "I don't know".  This question, by the way, is the same one Pew asked in their survey, and they didn't even offer a "don't know" option - it had to be volunteered by the respondent.  So, what happens when you allow for "I don't know" in these three different ways? 

When "don't know" is asked 1st in sequence before the safety question, a whopping 43% say they don't have an opinion!  By contrast, only 28% say "don't know" when it is offered simultaneously with the safety question.  And, as the bottom pie graph shows, only about 6% of respondents in the Pew survey voluntarily offer "don't know".  Thus, I think Kahan's critique has a lot of merit: a large fraction of consumers gave an opinion in the Pew survey, when in fact, they probably didn't have one when this option was allowed in a more explicitly matter.  

Moreover, allowing (or not allowing) for "don't know" in these different ways generates very different conclusions about consumers' beliefs about the safety of GMOs.  Conditional on having an opinion, the percent saying "generally safe" varies from 40% in the sequential question to 50% in the simultaneous question to 39% in the Pew format which didn't offer "don't know."  That support can vary so widely depending on how "don't know" is asked is hardly indicative of stable, firm, beliefs about GMOs among the general public. 

In last week's survey I also carried out the same exercise regarding Pew's questions on climate change.  For half of my sample, I first asked whether people had an opinion about the causes of changes in the earth's temperature; for the other half, I included "don't know" as an option simultaneous with the question itself.   Here are the results compared to Pew's, which again did not explicitly offer a "don't know."  

Again, we see big differences in the extent to which "don't know" is expressed depending on question format, varying from 37% in the sequential version to only 2% in Pew's survey.  In this case, it appears that people who would have said "don't know" in the sequential question format are more likely to pick response categories that disagree with scientists, when they are given questions where "don't know" isn't so explicitly allowed.  

What can we learn from all this?  Just because people express an opinion on surveys doesn't mean they actually have one (or at least not a very firmly held one).  

Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - February 2016

The February 2016 edition of the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) is now out.

A few highlights:

• Willingness-to-Pay for most meat products was relatively steady except for an increase in WTP for ground beef and pork chops and a decrease for chicken wings (note: the timing of the survey fell after the Super Bowl weekend).
• There was a large change in price expectations.  Consumers expect lower meat prices than they did a month ago.  In fact the expectations are as low as they've been since the survey started in May 2013.   
• There was an increase in awareness of bird flu in the media over the past couple weeks.
• There was lower concern expressed about both "pink slime" and "lean finely textured beef."

Several new ad hoc questions were added to the survey this month. Some questions related to GMO safety beliefs, and how they varied with the ability of consumers to express uncertainty.  There's a lot to discuss on that topic, so these questions will be discussed separately.

The other ad hoc question was added for a bit of fun.  Given the busy election season, we asked respondents, “Who do you plan to vote for in the presidential primary election?” A list of 16 options was then provided.

The majority of respondents replied “I don’t know”. Donald Trump (R) and Hilary Clinton (D) were the two candidates with the most planned votes, followed closely by Bernie Sanders and “I do not plan to vote.” After Trump, all other listed Republican candidates garnered a cumulative 16% of the anticipated vote.

Out of curiosity , we took a look at how some of the answers to other survey questions varied with anticipated presidential voting (recognizing of course that the sample sizes are relatively small for each candidate, and thus the margins of errors wide).

Donald Trump supporters had the highest concern for E. Coli and placed the lowest relative importance on the food values of naturalness and the environment; Trump supporters were the biggest beef, pork, and overall meat eaters (but ate the least chicken breast). Sanders supporters eat the least beef, pork, and total meat.

Clinton and Sanders supporters placed the least relative importance on food prices. Clinton supporters were the most concerned about GMOs, and placed the highest relative importance on naturalness, nutrition, and environment when buying food.