Farmscape for March 20, 2018

The Chair of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute says increased access to and use of modern communication tools have forced retailers to become much more responsive to the questions their customers have about the food they are buying and how it's being produced.
"Retail and Consumer Trends" will be among the topics discussed as part of the 2018 London Swine Conference set for March 27th and 28th.
John Scott, the Chair of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, observes the demographic shift we've had in Canada in the past few years has been dramatic

Clip-John Scott-Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute:
What we call the Millennials, I know it's an over used term, has really replaced the Baby Boom as the prime consumer.
The Millennials are having children and they consume in very different ways than the Baby Boom generation did.
These folks are very interested in great value, they're interested in reading labels, they're interested in making sure that the products they're serving their families are the best nutrition.
While the previous generation was interested in that they didn't have the tools, the technology that we have today to ensure that their confidence level is there.
That's changed quite a bit.
The second thing, of course, that's changed is what I've just referenced is technology, the ability of any consumer to determine exactly what they want to eat and what does ingredients mean and people tend to use those technologies in different ways.
The result of that is retailers have to be very wily, they have to be very knowledgeable about their products and they have to be sure that they are developing their stores or their offering in line with the type of consumer that's in their particular area.
It's a very different game than it was just even five years ago.

Scott says food retailers and those who supply the products they sell must be prepared to answer questions that are built more on societal expectations including what are your policies around sustainability, what are your policies around ethics and what are the claims you have with respect to health?
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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