The portion of consumers who care passionately about, are dissatisfied with, and are distrustful of how food is made, packaged and sold zoomed to 24 percent from 10 percent in two years, becoming a “mainstream segment that manufacturers cannot ignore,” said Food Navigator, citing a Food 2020 report by public relations firm Ketchum.
These consumers are highly skeptical of food and beverage companies, said a Ketchum official, and prefer to gather information about food from each other, families, nutritionists, farmers and health care workers rather than industry. Linda Eatherton, of Ketchum, said the group’s influence and numbers would soon make it “the new normal.” The Ketchum survey found that 69 percent of these skeptical consumers, which it dubbed “food evangelists,” believe fresh food is better than packaged, 54 percent say the best food comes from local farmers, and 49 percent trust the quality of food from a local retailer over supermarkets.