Survey: 55 Percent of Consumers Prefer Sustainable Food Options

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The lat­est con­sumer sur­vey from Cargill, one of the world’s largest agri­cul­tural ser­vices and food pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies, demon­strates that shop­pers are increas­ingly con­scious of sus­tain­abil­ity when mak­ing food pur­chases.

The lat­est FATitudes Survey was con­ducted on 6,000 shop­pers in 11 coun­tries. Fifty-five per­cent of the inter­viewed con­sumers said that they are more likely to buy a spe­cific item if it comes with a sus­tain­abil­ity claim, up from 51 per­cent in 2019.

Even in coun­tries where con­sumers are less inter­ested in sus­tain­abil­ity, the num­bers are grow­ing.

In the United States, the sur­vey reported that 37 per­cent of Americans fac­tor sus­tain­abil­ity into their food selec­tion process, a six-per­cent increase com­pared with 2019.

Other coun­tries such as Brazil and Mexico have reported a 13-per­cent increase in the same period, with 74 per­cent of Brazilian con­sumers and 66 per­cent of Mexican con­sumers inter­ested in the sus­tain­abil­ity pro­file of the food they choose.

India also has seen this fig­ure grow to 67 per­cent (an 11-per­cent increase). Meanwhile, the United Kingdom saw inter­est in food sus­tain­abil­ity rise to 51 per­cent, an eight-per­cent increase.

Cargill, which is a major pro­ducer of palm oil, stressed how the sur­vey asked con­sumers what kind of sus­tain­abil­ity claim they would expect for the first time.

The top results went to claims such as ​“sus­tain­ably sourced” and ​“con­ser­va­tion of nat­ural resources.” According to Cargill, those fared well ahead of known labels such as ​“Fair Trade” or ​“reduced pack­ag­ing.”

“Our lat­est find­ings clearly demon­strate that mes­sages sur­round­ing sus­tain­abil­ity are hav­ing an impact on con­sumers,” said Nese Tagma, man­ag­ing direc­tor of strat­egy and inno­va­tion for Cargill’s global edi­ble oils busi­ness. ​“Insights like these help guide our con­sumer-focused approach to inno­va­tion, enabling us to part­ner with cus­tomers to co-cre­ate new prod­ucts and solu­tions that reflect cur­rent con­sumer trends and ingre­di­ent pref­er­ences.”

In a press release, Cargill stressed the rel­e­vance of ​“regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture pro­grams for row crop oilseeds to palm oil cer­ti­fied as respon­si­bly sourced by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.”

The palm oil mar­ket has been steadily expand­ing over time. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 75,503 tons of palm oil were pro­duced in 2021. Indonesia (59 per­cent) and Malaysia (25 per­cent) are by far the largest pro­duc­ers.

The sig­nif­i­cance of sus­tain­abil­ity for the future of the palm oil mar­ket is enor­mous. Recently, the European Union has announced new rules for edi­ble oil, which will require sus­tain­abil­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for prod­ucts to be imported within the 27-mem­bers block.

In other coun­tries, such as Sri Lanka, the gov­ern­ment has banned imports and asked farm­ers to uproot their palm tree plan­ta­tions, as they have been seen as a cause of defor­esta­tion.

Referring to the sur­vey results, Florian Schattenmann, chief tech­nol­ogy offi­cer and vice pres­i­dent of inno­va­tion and research and devel­op­ment for Cargill, noted how ​“these insights fur­ther affirm our com­mit­ment to embed sus­tain­able prac­tices into every aspect of our oper­a­tions.”

“This includes every­thing from our sourc­ing prac­tices to pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties, and even extends to new prod­uct devel­op­ment, where deci­sions to com­mer­cial­ize inno­va­tions now con­sider sus­tain­abil­ity along­side per­for­mance and cost,” he con­cluded.

• Cargill
• USDA